


Death and the Art of Pyramid Selling

by Rossi



Category: Constantine: The Hellblazer (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Child Death, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Horror, Original Character Death(s), Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:24:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rossi/pseuds/Rossi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When tragedy strikes his family, retired police officer Phil Kingston calls on a favour owed to him by John Constantine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When Push Comes to Shove

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This is a follow-up to “Suffer the Children”, but not a sequel – it’s not necessary to have read that to understand this. Phil Kingston didn’t take his retirement quietly and demanded ‘another go’. You can find “Suffer” here on AO3.

“Now, Alice, I want you to look after your little sister. Mummy’s just going for a walk.” 

Alice remembered the words as she clutched at Carrie’s hand. The six-year-old whined and tugged, trying to follow their mother’s route down the rail embankment, but Alice held fast, remembering her mother’s instruction, remembering the way her voice had seemed to come from a long way away, somewhere dark and cold and difficult to find your way back from. She was the oldest, and she took the responsibility of her ten years seriously. So she stood her ground, holding onto her little sister’s hand and watching as her mother turned to look at the train bearing down upon her with a small smile upon her face. 

The train’s horn obliterated all other sound – the birds, Carrie’s demanding wail, the words that were shaped by her mother’s mouth as she gave them one final glance. Then she was gone, trampled beneath wheels of steel, the train travelling too fast to stop. Alice caught a brief glance of a shoe, her mother’s shoe, her mother’s severed foot still sticking out of it, cast aside like any old bit of rubbish. She pulled at Carrie’s hand.

“Let’s go back to the car, Carrie.”

“I want Mummy!” her little sister protested, tugging back. Alice’s grip didn’t waver.

“Mummy’s not there,” she said, and it was true: the pulped, red mess that had been left in the train’s path wasn’t her mother. 

Not any more.

***

English countryside flashed past, green, undulating and as boring as all fuck. Hills cut into sections by dry stone walls, fields dotted with sheep and the occasional excitement of a cow. John Constantine rested his head against the window with a sigh, cursing the track work that had extended a two-hour trip into something the wrong side of Eternity. He extended his internal griping to include Margaret Thatcher’s dismantling of the integrated rail system, the bloodsucking leeches of the Great North Eastern Railway, the plonker across from him with the overly-long legs and the shin-barking luggage, the cost of a tiny plastic cup of beer and something that called itself a Provencale Ciabatta Roll (in reality a soggy chunk of stale bread with a sliver of anaemic ham), but most of all, his old mate Phil Kingston, for choosing Yorkshire, of all places, to retire to. And who had the sheer bastardry to book him a seat in the non-smoking compartment on an overcrowded train. Oh yes, Phil might seem like a good bloke, a decent chap, but he had a more diabolic sense of humour than Lucifer himself.

He pushed the rolled-up coat more firmly under his head, and accidentally on purpose gave the git across from him a kick in the ankle so it moved a grudging few inches. True, there wasn’t far to go, but a bit of kip wouldn’t hurt – it had been a typically late night nicely punctuated by Phil’s call early the next morning. Constantine frowned briefly, thinking of that call. There had been something odd about Phil’s manner, something almost paranoid. He’d refused to explain things on the phone, telling him only that it was vitally important that John come and see him. In Yorkshire. That day. Admittedly the fall-out of the Raguel business would have been enough to make anyone start checking for phone taps and coded messages on the TV, but Phil wasn’t the sort to scare easy. And that was how he’d sounded, scared and angry. The last time Constantine had heard that tone in Phil’s voice, it had been on the trail of an avenging demon-childe. No, not a good omen at all.

He closed his eyes and let the motion of the train rock him to sleep.

***

She was Going Places.

That was the important thing to remember. She was an Up-And-Comer. A Mover and Shaker. The Next Big Thing. True, she was only selling cosmetics _now_ , but within a few short years she would have made her stake and would be well on her way to The Top.

Deborah shifted the awkwardly-sized cosmetics case under her arm and sighed impatiently. Bloody buses. They were always late. This last sales party, the one in Cheswick, had been profitable enough, which meant the case was almost empty, but it did mean she would have a lot of processing work to do. Accounts to settle, orders to make, restocking to be done of her samples. And bloody Cheswick was miles from anywhere and since she didn’t have a car – yet – here she was stuck catching the bus with a damn awkward sample case tucked under her arm. Still, once she’d made her first million, she could look back on this and laugh. It would make a good story for interviews, those “the way we were” type things the women’s magazines did. ‘Multi-Millionaire’s Public Transport Hell’. The mental headline made her smile.

A grinding rumble above the traffic, a flash of red. About bloody time – Time was Money. Deborah took a few steps forward, set the case and her handbag carefully down, and then walked briskly off the footpath and into the path of the oncoming bus. 

***

The air was so crisp and fresh it made his lungs ache for the bitter smogs of London. Constantine took a long drag of the cigarette that had appeared almost magically in his hand the second he’d stepped off the train, trying to reduce the shock. The town – they probably called it a village – was postcard-perfect and just as lively. No sign of Phil, or of a cab, either. Nothing for it but to follow his nose through quaint cobbled streets and past carefully-tended gardens. ‘The Stepford Wives’ set in rural Yorkshire – bit of a tautology that, was there any part of Yorkshire that wasn’t rural? He snorted, sending cigarette smoke streaming into the clean air. What a place for Phil Kingston to wind up in. No wonder he’d sounded so peculiar on the phone, living here would be enough to drive anyone barmy, but especially someone like Phil, who seemed as much a part of London’s underside as Constantine himself. Must have been the wife’s doing, Phil would never have agreed to it otherwise…

It was part of Constantine’s peculiar magic – peculiar in the sense that it worked for him especially – that coincidence followed him around like a royal corgi. So he wasn’t especially surprised when his path took him across an ancient stone bridge over the railway line, or by the bunch of faded flowers left on the rough wall. They were garden and meadow flowers, picked by childish hands and tied with something that looked like a hair ribbon in a careless bow. Not worth a second glance really, until he realised there was a purpose behind them, a small but potent working of magic. 

When he was young he’d spent a less-than-memorable spring bonking a would-be druidess in a leaky tent pitched in a muddy field near Stonehenge. She’d been a better fuck than a witch, but he’d learned some herb craft from her, enough to recognise the elements at work here – rosemary for remembrance; fern for magic and shelter; the purple tuft of garlic flower to ward off evil; white heather for protection and to make wishes come true; marigold for sorrow; witch hazel to bind the spell. Simple magic, but there was such feeling behind it, something that gave it potency beyond the gathering of weeds.

An eerie prickle stirred the hair on the back of his neck, the feeling of eyes upon him, and he glanced around with the wariness of a man who has been the butt of Dame Fortune’s sense of humour once too often. There was nothing on the road, but a flicker of colour at the edge of his vision drew his glance down to the tracks below the bridge, gleaming dully in the creeping evening. On the verge beside stood a small figure, the red of her anorak echoing the red of her short, straight hair. She wasn’t playing, as he’d first thought she might be, she was standing stock-still, a waxen reproduction of a child, and she was staring, dark eyes huge in a small pointed pale face. Staring. At him.

Constantine frowned. He knew he was in Bronte country, but this was altogether too Gothic for him. Eldritch children, cottage-industry witchcraft… He looked down momentarily at the small bouquet, noting again the childishly clumsy knot in the ribbon. Of course, when he looked back, the child was gone.

“If I find Phil living in a haunted manor with a spooky housekeeper, I’m for the first train back to London,” he muttered, and continued down the road.


	2. Happy Families

The address Phil had given Constantine was far from a haunted manor. It (and following his nose) led him to a small stone cottage, roofed with grey slate and with low, wide windows overlooking another of the cottage gardens endemic to the area. It had roses growing over the door, for fuck’s sake.

“Christ, mate, you’re living in a bloody Beatrix Potter book,” he said as the door was opened to his knock, but his grin slipped as he took in the state of the former Detective Sergeant. “Bloody hell, Phil, what have they done to you?”

***

It was hard to watch Phil’s hands, trembling slightly, lifting the teacup to his lips.

“Sugar for you, dear?” asked Marjorie, teaspoon hovering. On a deep, almost-subconscious level, she worried Constantine – she reminded him of various well-meaning but catastrophically interfering female relatives who had clustered around his sister and himself after their mother died. Cheryl had sent them packing, right enough – in her way, she was cut from the same cloth, and would brook no interference – but not before many an agonising afternoon tea at this aunt’s or that second cousin’s.

“Um yeah. Thanks,” he said, hands awkward on the fine china as she passed the cup to him.

“So nice of you to visit. Phillip doesn’t see many of his old friends, and I worry about him sometimes. He needs a hobby…” Constantine barely restrained his snort and she continued, not noticing. “So, what brings you to Yorkshire, Mr Constantine?”

“Call me John.” He glanced across at Phil and read the message in his eyes – whatever the reason for Constantine’s summoning, it wasn’t to be discussed in front of the wife, and she wasn’t about to let them break up the happy little tea party and slope off to the local. Escape plans needed to be put into action. “Ah, mind if I smoke?”

Marjorie’s mouth thinned disapprovingly. “I’d prefer if you didn’t inside. The smell. It seeps into the carpets. I was so pleased when Phillip gave up at last…”

“How about I take him into the garden?” Phil offered gruffly. He levered himself out of the floral print armchair so slowly it was painful for Constantine to watch – all the energy seemed to have been leeched from the man. He’d never thought Phil would take well to retirement – too much the man of action, was Phil Kingston – but the reality was worse than his imaginings. Phil was an old man. Still, as he led Constantine through the small cottage, which was tastefully decorated in a country cottage sense, and into the back garden, his stride retained echoes of the old policeman’s walk. Detective Sergeant Kingston wasn’t dead then. Only resting.

The air was as clear and crisp and cold as an Australian beer, catching the back of Constantine’s throat and making him cough. Phil looked on at his spluttering with a hint of wry amusement.

“I always figured you’d be allergic to fresh air,” he remarked dryly.

Constantine snorted and put a cigarette to his lips, cupping his hands around his lighter to shield the small yellow flame from the biting wind. “So, besides providin’ you with amusement, what am I doing here?”

Phil’s face went bleak as he looked out over the small garden to the rocky hills beyond. Autumn roses bloomed in the deepening dusk, but the rest of the garden beds were bare, small evenly-spaced gravesites of turned earth.

“Got a job for you, John.” Phil’s voice came from his chest thin and reedy, an old man’s voice. “Got something that’s too big for me.”

“Strange, I thought you were retired. Gold watch, big piss-up, telling your super to shove it up his arse, the works.”

“This isn’t work. It’s personal. Family.” Phil pulled a folded section of newspaper out of his pants packet and passed it to the Londoner. “Here.”

‘Local Tragedy at Railway Bridge,’ read the headline. The clipping was slightly yellowed, frayed at the edges and where it had been folded. There was a date in one of the margins in Phil’s meticulous handwriting, making the article eight months old. The story itself was short, tactfully discreet, but it wasn’t hard to read behind the lines. Local widow, mother of two, killed beneath a train. No suspicious circumstances.

“It’s a suicide mate.” Constantine raised his eyebrows at Phil over the paper. “Hardly a smoking gun here, unless you’ve got something more.”

“My daughter in law.” Phil’s voice was tightly controlled, stony as the granite that lurked scant metres beneath the black soil of this landscape. “My son’s wife.”

Constantine recalled something he’d heard in passing, about Phil’s son being a soldier killed during active duty in Ireland – those who had known Phil before that time had said the man had turned to stone at the news, become rock-hard and refused to let anything crack him. Until now, anyway – Constantine was disturbed on a fundamental level to see tears standing in those cold eyes. Not since Raguel had he seen Phil so shaken.

“She was murdered.”

“Phil, mate, I can understand you’re hurt by this, but come on… This report says she was just sitting there on the tracks.”

“No way would Chrissie do that. No fucking way.” The tone was quiet but the vehemence was undeniable. “She was _murdered_. And I know who by.”

“You do? Great. Take it to the boys in blue and let them do their thing.” Constantine took another deep drag of his cigarette to counter the cleanness of the air.

“I _can’t_.” Phil took a deep shuddering breath, closing his eyes for a second. “John, I need you on this. Do you think I would ask you if I didn’t?” When Constantine remained silent, he elaborated. “There’s magic here, John, I’m sure of it. Your type o’ thing.”

For a long moment, all that could be heard was the wind rattling through the small garden. Neither had to speak to know the phrase was echoing in both their memories.

“Interesting choice o’ words, mate. You remember how things turned out last time you called me in to help you out. Think you can handle the body count this time?”

Phil’s face turned grey, and the tremble returned to his lips. He turned his eyes to the distant hills, visibly struggling to control himself. “Bastard,” he said, his voice quiet but intense with feeling. Conscience, unfamiliar but still carrying a sting, pricked at Constantine. Raguel’s death hadn’t been Phil’s fault, even though his hands had wielded the railway spike. The kid had been doomed from the moment of his conception.

“Phil, I’m sorry, that was out of line…”

“Fuck off, John. I mean it.” Phil turned on his old friend with venom. “You think I’m senile? Fine. Piss off back to bloody London then. Read about my untimely demise in the papers. ‘Cause that’s just like you, isn’t it John? You and your damnable luck keeping you safe, keeping you untouched. Not like the rest of us.” Constantine opened his mouth to argue, but Phil ploughed on, drowning his protests out. “Oh, I know all about your tragic history, the friends you’ve buried, but you want to know something? They’re dead because o’ you, because you used them to get what you wanted. Cannon fodder. An’ you just go merrily on your way, because you’re John Bloody Constantine, the Bastard, an’ nothing and no-one ever touches you. You just don’t give a rat’s.” Shaking slightly with the strength of his diatribe, Phil gestured at the door. “I’ll see you out. There’s a train in another hour. Best you be on it.”

Constantine took one last long draw at the cigarette in his mouth, blew out a great cloud of blue-grey smoke that was taken and shredded by the wind. Dropped the butt on the fake-brick patio and ground it out deliberately under his heel.

“It’s been a pleasure seeing you, _mate_ ,” he said, and led the way back through the cottage to the front door.

“Oh, are you leaving already? You only just arrived!” Marjorie fluttered, rising from the chintz-printed couch as Constantine shrugged into the tan trench-coat that was his second skin.

“John has urgent business in London, don’t you, John?” Something in Phil’s tone pulled his wife up short, polite concern rapidly switching to suspicion. “Can’t be helped.”

“Yeah, something like that. Nice to meet you, missus.” Constantine looked at the retired copper as he opened the door. “Phil.” Volumes were contained in that one word, but before either could say anything further, the front gate creaked and a small blue-coated blur shot past Constantine to wrap itself around Phil’s legs. 

“Grandad!” 

“I’ll be off then,” Constantine told Phil, and turned to head down the path. He almost collided with the another small shape, this one clad in a red anorak, topped by red hair. She looked up at him with large dark eyes, and she _knew_ him, knew what he was. Constantine shivered despite himself, and blamed it on the chilly Yorkshire wind.

“Out of me way, kid,” he said gruffly, but not unkindly. Not with Phil behind him, watching his every move like an elderly guard dog.

She smiled then. “You can’t go yet,” she said. “You haven’t done what you came to do.”

“Enough, Alice,” Phil said from the doorway. “Mr Constantine can’t stay.” The other little girl in blue had already gone inside – her piping voice could be heard chattering to Marjorie – and he nodded at the older girl in red. “My grand-daughters. Chrissie and Paul’s kids. Me and the wife have got custody, since…”

“Since Mummy was killed.” Alice looked up at Constantine again. “And you’re going to stop the person who did it, aren’t you?” 

“Cheap shot, Phil, setting your grandkid up like this,” Constantine told the other man bitterly. He directed his glance down to Alice, who was still standing in his way, a muscle working along the length of his jaw. “An’ guess what? It didn’t work. I’m out of here.”

“But…” Alice frowned.

“No buts, kid. I’m not your knight in shining armour. Or even your magician in ratty trench coat. I’m a bloke who’s going to be on his way back to London by means of the next train out of this dump, and I plan to be rescuing pints from imprisonment in a pub by your bedtime.” Gently, but firmly, he shifted her out of the way. “An’ a word of advice – no more magic. Unless you want to end up like your mum, no more DIY protective charms, right? Your grandad should know better than to let you fool around with that stuff.”

Phil’s expression became concerned. “Alice? What have you been up to? You haven’t been doing that stuff again, after what I said?”

The eldritch mask slipped, revealing a child caught out in disobedience. “But it was only a _little_ spell, Grandad, and Auntie showed me how…”

Constantine took advantage of the distraction to slip away, walking briskly back the way he had come to the station. As he walked, he thought about what Phil had said, what he had asked. “Poor old bugger’s lost it,” he muttered to himself. “Seeing shadows that aren’t there.” It wouldn’t be the first time his world had proved too much for someone’s sanity, and to be fair, Phil had taken the Raguel business hard, and then with the death of his daughter-in-law and having to look after the two sprogs… “Be enough to send anyone around the bend,” he decided as he reached the small station. He’d forgive him the stuff he’d said, eventually. Phil probably didn’t mean it, and even if he did, a lot of it was true. 

The timetable pinned to the wall informed him in neat, official script that the next train back to London wasn’t until the next morning. Constantine’s forgiving mood withered as he muttered curses under his breath about Phil Kingston’s senility dragging him into the wilds of nowhere on a wild goose chase. He looked around, at a loss, until he caught sight of the sign swinging in the increasing breeze at the front of a homey-looking building across the road. “The Drover’s Arms”, it read, and the name made promises of pints of home-brewed ale, some bland if filling foodstuff, and a lumpy bed in a damp-ish guest room.

“Any port in a storm,” Constantine muttered to himself, and crossed the narrow cobbled street.


	3. Roughing It

The air was thick with cigarette smoke and heavy with the sour tang of beer. To Constantine, tucked in an unobtrusive corner and inhaling deeply, looking across the room was like peering through a glass of stout, thick and hazy and tinged with brown. For a while he simply drank it in.

The pub itself was a pretty ordinary affair, grown from the same solid rural stock as a thousand others from Scarborough to Bath. The clientele, too, could have been extras trucked in for a BBC drama, one possibly involving a vet with an unhealthy obsession with sticking his arm up cows. A few old farmers, faces red and raw with weather and incipient alcoholism; a pair of younger men, farm hands to judge from the reek of cow shit and machine oil on their clothes, playing pool on the faded table; a motley gang of teens, barely old enough to drink and marking the time aimlessly until their escape to the bright lights of the city. Constantine’s gaze slid over them without interest, until it came to rest on a shapely, jeans-clad rear-end seemingly pointed straight at him. He watched it appreciatively as it wriggled and swayed, until its owner completed her shot on the pool table, straightening with a laugh and a toss of the smooth dark-brown hair that hung straight to her shoulder blades. She was slim, athletic in a religious-attendance-at-an-expensive-gym-class kind of way. Although she was dressed like the other young locals in jeans and rough woollen jumper, Constantine’s perusal had already picked up the designer label on that sweetly-rounded bum; city girl taking the country air, then. She must have felt his eyes crawling over her, because she turned from her teasing of the farmhands and met his gaze, brown eyes coolly assessing. 

He obviously passed whatever test she set him, because in her next turn at the table, she easily sank her remaining balls, and, declining her opponents’ macho-driven demands for a rematch, crossed the murky common-room to his table. There was something about the way she carried herself, moving with the grace of a hunting cat, that triggered his curiosity. It triggered something else lower down too, and he smiled as she slid into the seat opposite him, turning on the devil-may-care charm. 

“Like what you see?” she asked, her smile slow and rich like fresh cream.

“You play a mean game of pool, if that’s what you mean,” he replied. “Slumming it, are we?”

“You really need a better self-image if you see yourself that way,” she countered with another of those somehow-predatory smiles. Christ, she was looking at him like she was a cat and he was small, yellow and feathered.

“Perhaps all I need is some inflating.” Constantine drained his glass, raised an eyebrow at her. “Get you something?”

She took his cue. “Scotch. Straight.”

“Lady after me own tastes.” He was conscious of her eyes on him as he walked to the bar, and he couldn’t help putting a little extra swagger into his walk. It wasn’t often that his scruffy appeal worked quite so quickly – it usually required at least a couple more drinks – but he of all people wasn’t one to argue with the toss of the coin. And Fate owed him one after the events of the day. Least he could get out of this was a free pillow and some healthy exercise to go with all the fucking fresh air.

Fate paid off. They had a few drinks, exchanged more innuendo-laden repartee, had what passed as a meal in the “Drover’s Arms”, and then she’d practically dragged him upstairs. One of those independent, strong-minded types – Michaela, no surname given – had his jacket off and her tongue half-way down his throat before they’d even shut the door. He soon caught up, her sensible woolly jumper peeled off in a crackle of static electricity that shot blue sparks from her hair, her blouse following in short measure. Her mouth tasted of the mid-price Scotch he’d bought her, and he drank her in, even as she devoured him. 

Her jeans proved trickier than her other clothing, and she giggled into his neck as he clumsily picked her up and shuffled the short distance to the bed. Dumping her on the protesting mattress, he proceeded to peel off the offending article, pulling off her shoes in the process, leaving her naked except for a pair of practical wool socks and highly impractical lacy underwear. In the dim light coming through the window and from the glowing red numbers of a cheap bedside clock radio, her skin rippled over taut muscle, a body as well-maintained as any Auto Club member’s pride and joy. He paused for a moment to enjoy the view, then set to exploring its landscape in a detail that set her to writhing beneath him. Her hands on him were hot and hungry, stripping off his own clothing with reckless haste. His shirt was jerked over his head and his pants hastily unbuttoned and shoved down and then ignored, leaving him to wriggle them off, toeing his shoes off as he went. She was good with her hands, and her tongue, every touch setting his nerves on fire. She wanted it harder, faster, demanded it, and he thrust into her like the piece of rough she wanted, while she gasped and moaned and cried out another man’s name.

He half expected to be evicted the minute the condom was off – she didn’t strike him as the afterglow sort - but perhaps the drumming rain on the roof made her charitable, for she simply rolled over and sank into sleep with no more than a satisfied smile for him. It didn’t bother him overmuch; he snuggled into that smooth warm back and let sleep take him as well.

***

A shifting of weight, movement, and the chill of air on his skin from a cast-aside blanket brought him back. He feigned slumber, however, until he heard her close the door softly behind her, the pad of bare feet down the small hallway to the bathroom. Michaela was an early riser, it seemed, and since she hadn’t stayed for Round Two, he figured he’d gotten his marching orders. Well, he was feeling contrary this morning, and wouldn’t play her little game and be conveniently gone by the time she returned from her purifying shower. Constantine sat up, leaned over the side of the bed to grope in his trouser pocket for his cigarettes and found only a crushed empty packet. Bugger. Well, his companion of the evening was a smoker – instead of the cliched strawberries or chocolate, her mouth had tasted of whisky and menthols, and it had turned him on all the more – and his questing hand ran over the bedside table. He upset a teetering pile of files in the process, and papers cascaded over the clothes-strewn floor beside the bed. Grumbling under his breath, he leaned over again to scoop them up, ignoring the sudden greying of his vision as the blood rushed to his head, but then a familiar face peered up at him from under what seemed to be a coroner’s report. He snagged the photo amongst a handful of other documents and sat back, a single word slipping from him unnoticed:

“Fuck.”

Chrissie Kingston smiled up at him, arms around two smiling daughters. Alice’s dark eyes sparkled, free of eldritch shadows.

The nicotine craving hit him again, and he scrabbled around in the bedside cabinet’s drawer automatically, eyes busy scanning the other papers. More names, more deaths, scribbled notes… his fingers closed over something slim and slightly hard that might be a cigarette case and he pulled it out. When he flipped it open however, it was to find the warrant card of one DI Michaela Robbins, of the London Metropolitan Police.

‘Dammit it all to hell.’ Constantine grimaced. Then the door creaked open, and he looked up from the accident investigation report into the death of one Deborah Carvan, aged twenty-two, into the less-than-amused dark eyes of DI Robbins.

“If I’d known you were a reader, I would have ordered ‘The Times’ for you,” she said coolly.

The trick of turning a situation to your advantage is to never admit you were at a disadvantage in the first place. Constantine merely grinned at her: “I know the murder mystery is a popular genre, but this stuff’s a bit much for a bit o’ light reading, ain’t it? Get tired of Ruth Rendell?”

“Those are official police documents and you’re committing an offence. Now get your clothes on and get out before I charge you.” The threat might have held more weight if she hadn’t been in a pink terry-cloth dressing-gown with her hair wrapped in a ridiculous towel turban. Constantine’s grin became a leer.

“Into the role-playing, are we? Well, luv, I’m ready for another tumble.” He dropped the documents he’d been reading over the side to land on his shirt and indicated the bulge his erection was making in the bed-coverings. “Are you going to tell me I’m nicked and call me Sunshine?” She glowered and opened her mouth to do just that, and he added: “Be entertainin’ for the local bobbies, you hauling me into the station in me skivvies. And no end of witnesses too, in the pub last night. It’s right handy for you.”

Her shoulders sagged just a fraction, and he knew he had her. Those brown eyes, which had practically melted at him last night, could have passed for lasers, however. “What do you want?”

“What every bloke wants at this time of day, luv.” Constantine grinned to see her eyes darken further, the way her hands moved to the neck of her fuzzy gown and clenched the material protectively. “Breakfast, of course.” 

The expression of surprise was comical. “What?”

“You know, eggs, bacon, toast, maybe a sausage or two. Regular Yorkshire fry-up. Or is that beyond the Met’s expense account?”

“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? That’s it?”

“For now.” The grin slipped off his face for a moment, and his expression turned calculating. She shivered slightly, and they both knew it wasn’t from the early morning chill of the small room. “I’ll let you know.”

“The hell you will.” She bent – careful to keep the dressing gown pulled closed – and picked his jacket up from the floor. “I’ve had enough of your games. Get your clothes on and get the fuck out of here.”

“What, no brekkie?” She glared at him and threw his jacket into his face. He shrugged. “Budget cuts. I understand.” He threw back the blankets, exposing himself in full morning glory and scooped his trousers up off the floor. “Guess I’ll catch up with you later, luv. Thanks for a wonderful evening,” he said, standing to pull his trousers up and buttoning them. He bent and grabbed his shirt, using it to conceal the handful of papers that came with it, and slung his jacket over the top. She watched him stonily, arms crossed over her breasts, not flinching as he passed her and leaned over to peck her on the cheek. “Ta, Detective Inspector.” Whistling jauntily, he left, collecting his shoes as he went.

He had breakfast in a small café in the town’s main street, reading through the scattered papers he’d acquired from DI Robbins. He doubted she’d show her face for a while, especially after the scene he’d made leaving in a general state of disarray, jacket slung over his unbuttoned shirt, hair mussed, lipstick kisses visible under his collar. Something to occupy the worthy citizens for quite a while, no doubt. And to make things difficult for the DI.

Buttering another piece of toast to sop up the egg yolk smearing his plate, he frowned as he squinted at her scrawling notes. Whatever she was involved in, it wasn’t official – picking up strange men and bonking them senseless whilst on duty didn’t appear in the Police Regulations, he was willing to bet. And yet most of this stuff _was_ official; traffic accident reports, autopsy results, even a statement from the husband of a woman from Kent who tossed herself from an upper floor window during an afternoon bridge game. Private project? She should join forces with Phil, start a conspiracy theorists’ group, investigate the highly improbable. He snickered to himself, picturing Robbins in a red wig with a trench coat. And Phil beside her, muttering about how the truth was Out There.

‘Check recent suicides for cosmetic involvement’, read one of the jottings, and he knitted his brows again. Cosmetic involvement? He flipped through the papers until he came across a personal effects list from the Carvan case. ‘One pink plastic suitcase, containing assorted ‘Cottage Magic’ brand cosmetics’ was highlighted in yellow, with an additional note: ‘Check company’s credit listing.’

“Bugger me, Phil was right,” he muttered to himself, earning a strange look from the matronly woman waiting tables. She set a steaming mug of tea in front of him and left, taking his empty plate with her. The name of the company might have been coincidence, but he had learned not to ignore coincidence. It was too painful if he did, and a hell of a lot more hassle. Alice’s pale, pointed face rose in his mind’s eye for a moment and he cursed. Bad enough that there seemed to be someone using magic to kill off Avon Ladies, but there had to be a sprog involved. Worse, a sprog with a connection to Phil Kingston. It was enough to make a man swear off having kids. Again.

There was nothing for it. Constantine drained his tea and pulled out his wallet, dropping a fiver on the table. If there was one thing he hated more than anything else in the world, it was being proved wrong. It made him look like such a berk.

***

Three more. That was all she needed to achieve her goal, three more people signed up. Nora frowned as she smoothed down her blazer, adjusted the pins on her lapel: emerald, ruby, silver… Only three more saps willing to sell the product, and she’d have the coveted diamond pin. Bad enough that she’d missed out last regional meeting, while that arrogant bitch Deborah Carvan had gotten hers, marching up to the platform to receive her prize with that smirk on her lips. Still, the cow had indeed gotten hers, in the end. Oh yes, she had.

The doorbell rang, and she glanced at her watch. Five minutes early, a good sign, leastways in terms of interest. Didn’t show much ability to follow instructions, ‘though. Or read them. The invitations had very clearly stated six o’ clock. With an impatient noise, Nora gave her reflection one more inspection, and gave herself an approving nod. She was very model of a successful woman. One who _would_ get what she wanted, in the end.

Only three more.

***

“You did this on purpose, didn’t you, Phil?”

“Can’t say I know what you’re talking about, John.” Phil continued up the hill, breathing only slightly harder, wellingtons squelching in the thick mud. “Besides, I think they suit you.”

“Phil, they’re _pink_.”

“Be grateful the kids’ frog wellies were too small, or I’d have had you in them. Lucky Marjorie’s feet are the same size as yours.” If there was a hint of smugness in Phil’s voice, he might have been forgiven for it. It had taken Constantine a lot of talking to even get him to open the door, and the man was enjoying the turn-around. “Come on, it’s not much further to go. Just over this hill.”

“So you said three bloody hills back,” Constantine grumbled, jerking his coat free of an over-friendly gorse bush. “What kind of successful cosmetics company builds its main factory out in the middle of a bloody bog?”

“One that has something to hide, obviously. You’ve got less deductive sense than one of my probationers.”

“Good thing I’m not a plod then, is it?” Struggling through the mud to the top of the small rise, John stopped beside Phil, bending over and gasping for breath. The ex-policeman looked at him with amusement.

“Christ, man, look at the state of you. An’ I’ve got twenty years on you.”

“If man were meant to slog his way through bog and briar, God wouldn’t have invented concrete and public transport,” Constantine retorted when he was able. He coughed, took another couple of breaths, coughed again, and then straightened. From their vantage point, the moors stretched out beneath them, dull winter shades dappled by fleeting glimpses of sun. Water glinted more here than there and despite himself Constantine felt a moment’s gratitude for the thick rubber encasing his feet, even if it _was_ pink. 

“There.” He followed Phil’s pointing arm, and choked back a snort of laughter. Of course. It had to be.

Off to a left was a rather run-down manor house, surrounded by a barbed wire security fence, but suitably Gothic all the same. Ignore the fencing and the cameras on the roof and the place could have been written by Austen. He could almost fancy he’d caught a glimpse of a wild-eyed face peering from the attic windows. Apparently he’d made one Bronte joke too many.

“So what put you onto this place?” he asked, pulling his cigarettes out of his pocket and trying – without a lot of success – to light one in the brisk wind.

“Hints. Rumours. Old wives’ tales. Folk round these parts say there’s something strange going on, and I’m inclined to believe them. I told Chrissie not to get involved, that if she needed money Marjorie and I could help, but she was a proud one. Wanted to do it herself, said the kids were her responsibility and if we wanted to help we could baby-sit when she was working.” Approval laced Phil’s words. “Then, about a week before she was killed, she came to me, told me she was going to quit.”

“She had found out something?”

“Not really. Just couldn’t keep up the pace. Once you got to a certain level, the higher-ups, they got demanding. Wanted her to travel more, network, pull in more punters. These pyramid schemes… they’re like cults, in a way. Got their own credos, their own loyalties. Their own prices. An’ Chrissie didn’t like where it was heading, so she was going to tell them she was out. Next time I saw her, it was to identify the body. What was left of it.” There was a pause as Phil pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. “That tipped me onto this ‘Cottage Magic’ crowd. I did some digging and found Chrissie wasn’t the first distributor to meet with a messy end.”

Constantine thought back to the files he’d acquired from DI Robbins, the pathology reports, the statements. “So you think that if people don’t wanna play Avon lady any more, the company offs them?”

“Something like that.” Phil shrugged. “How, I dunno. That’s your area, explaining the unexplainable. But I _know_ Chrissie didn’t kill herself any more than other of them. So there had to be a way to _make_ them step into the front of trains and throw themselves out of windows. Magic, right?”

“Possibly,” Constantine replied slowly, piecing things together. “These others… do you know if they were wanting out too?” 

“No, an’ that’s the problem. My source back at the Met has dried up – got himself caught, I reckon, and I’ve got no way of finding out. But my guess is they were.”

“Maybe…” Constantine took another look at the house below. “We done up here?”

“Just about.” Phil turned, and started down the hill again. “One more stop. There’s someone you ought to meet.”


	4. Many Meetings

“So nice to meet you at last. I’ve heard so much about you.”

The welcoming smile was all gloss and shine, but no substance, echoing the cold emptiness in the china blue eyes. Geraldine Markham reminded one of a doll in a display cabinet, or a child beauty queen, all artificial perfection and untouchability. Now she crossed the thickly maroon carpet (matched, of course, by the drapes and various other fittings in the tastefully opulent office) to where her guests stood. “Yes, indeed, it is truly a pleasure.”

“Thank you.” Sharon cleared her throat nervously, looking across at her best friend and fellow-Distributor-Of-The-Month, Carla. “Um, we were very surprised to get the invitation.”

“Ah, but why should you be? Surely you realised that we would notice the wonderful job you do for our little enterprise?” Geraldine smiled again, and Carla shivered a little, unconsciously drawing a little closer to Sharon. There were too many teeth in that smile, shining white. The older woman looked… _hungry_. “It’s only right your efforts should be recognised.”

“Really, it’s nothing to make a fuss about,” Sharon said, resisting the urge to grab Carla’s hand and get the hell out of there. “We _like_ working for Cottage Magic.”

Carla nodded vigorous agreement. “And the networking is fun – you meet so many people.”

If their words were meant to curb Geraldine’s enthusiasm, they failed miserably. “ _Exactly!_ ” she beamed, her smile increasing seemingly beyond the limits of human physiology. “That’s exactly what this company needs, keen young blood. Which is why we asked you here for the All Districts Regional Meeting – seeing two young things like yourself go Gold will be _such_ an incentive to the others. Especially after Deborah Carvan’s _dreadful_ ‘accident’. Such a waste…” Geraldine plucked a fragment of lace-edged linen masquerading as a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes with it – meticulously avoiding smudging the layers of eyeliner and mascara encrusting her eyes. When she looked up again, there was no trace of tears in those eyes. “Unfortunately, there’s a _teensy_ bit of paperwork to be done, to make things all official. You girls don’t mind signing some things for me?”

Carla barely suppressed an eyeroll at Sharon. _Now_ they were on familiar ground – everywhere you turned, there was another form Cottage Magic wanted you to sign, in triplicate. Everything nice and proper. They followed Geraldine to the massive mahogany desk and what seemed to be a ream of forms.

“Nothing much,” Geraldine said with another of those hungry smiles, and handed Sharon a pen. “Just where it’s marked.” 

The ink was a thick, dark red, and Sharon looked at the pen inquiringly. “Are you sure this pen’s okay? Most official documents insist on blue or black. Otherwise it’s not legal.” Her brother was a law clerk, and liked to drop these little details to show how clever he was. Sharon personally thought it showed what a prat he was. Glancing down at the papers again, she missed the brief hardening of Geraldine’s doll-like mask, the venomous flash in her eyes. 

“Of course it’s legal, my _dear_ girl. It’s just a little quirk of mine – colour coordination is _so_ important, as you _surely_ understand.” With a flutter of her hands she indicated the decidedly red-themed room. 

“Oh, yes, how silly of me.” Sharon flushed, picking up the subtle admonition. So the old cow was hinting she didn’t know how to coordinate, was she? She signed the papers marked for her signature, the pen digging into the thick creamy paper. “Here you go, Carla.” 

Carla took the pen as gingerly as if she’d been offered a snake or a spider. “I’m not sure…” she murmured, looking to Sharon for guidance, as she had done since their school days. “There’s something strange here, Shar…” Unwilling to look a further fool in front of this creepy biddy, Sharon sighed with impatience. 

“Don’t be such a goose, Carla. It’s just paperwork. What harm can signing your name do?” She nudged her friend closer to the desk. “Just do it, and then we can go back to our room and get ready for tomorrow, okay?” Carla hesitated a moment longer, but dreading the look of contempt she knew would soon appear on her best friend’s face, it was only a moment. With fingers trembling slightly, she touched pen to paper. 

“ _Excellent_ ,” Geraldine beamed at them, clasping her hands together in front of her ample chest. Her tongue flickered out briefly and wetted her lips, and Carla took a small, startled step backwards, a tiny, frightened squeak escaping her. “Now everything can proceed as planned. It shall be _such_ an event.” 

*** 

There was a crystal ball on the table. 

Constantine didn’t even bother masking the sneer of contempt on his face as their host busied herself making tea. “None of that herbal muck,” Phil had warned her, and it seemed a wise caution to make – the place reeked of patchouli oil and incense and home-dried herbs, and there was no telling what ‘healthy’ concoction you’d end up with. Further examination of the tiny cottage’s front room only confirmed Constantine’s worst fears; crystals and dreamcatchers hung in the window, dolphins and whales cavorted in an impossibly-blue painted ocean in the poster above the mantelpiece, and pentagrams featured heavily in the upholstery pattern. There was even a unicorn collection. He turned a pained look to Phil. 

“You’ve lost your sodding marbles, mate.” 

Phil’s expression was palpably malicious. “What? I thought you’d feel right at home in a place like this. Right up your alley, ain’t it, being a fellow-magician an’ all.” 

Constantine snorted. “ _Magician_? Phil, the most magic this bint could manage is making the money disappear from the wallets of the terminally gullible having a particularly stupid day.” 

"Sounds familiar. Remember what you were doing when I first… ‘met’ you? Rigging fruit machines, wasn’t it?” 

“That’s not the same thing and you know it. Besides, it wasn’t as if I did it on purpose. And I never got involved with all this…” Constantine waved his hand at the room. “All this _crap_. I’d be willing to bet money there’s a shrine to the Mother Goddess somewhere in here.” 

“It’s in the kitchen, actually. The feng shui was most auspicious there,” came the smooth interjection. Copper and silver jewellery jangling slightly, the slim dark-haired woman placed a laden tea tray on the silk-covered coffee table and sat with a swish of scarves in the arm chair closest to it. “Please, do sit down, Mr Constantine. I can assure you, your wallet is safe with me, even if you do seem to be having a particularly stupid day.” 

Constantine merely smiled. It wasn’t a particularly nasty smile, but something about it evaporated the witch’s air of smugness. “So, Phil,” he said again, “Why are we bothering with Glinda here?” 

“Because sometimes you need to make the most of what resources are available to you,” Phil replied, smoothly, cutting off ‘Glinda’s’ retort with a small shushing gesture. “And Jessica here has done quite a lot already. A lot of the information we have comes from her.” 

“I do my best, Uncle Phil,” Jessica said, blushing slightly. She wasn’t above giving Constantine a small smirk. ‘See?’ her expression seemed to say, ‘I’m not as useless as you would think.’ 

“’Uncle’?” Constantine gave Phil an amused look. 

“Yeah, she’s Marjorie’s niece. When Chrissie was killed, it was Jessica that found out that Cottage Magic mob had something t’ do with it.” 

“It’s in the cosmetics – the herbal compound they use weakens the will, opens the subject up to suggestion. Mixed with the usual pyramid-scheme dogma, it’s a very powerful combination. People start off as occasional customers, and before they know it, they’re so far in it’s almost impossible to get out.” 

“An’ so they top themselves?” Constantine’s brow furrowed in thought. “Nah, there’s something missing here. Why go to all that trouble just to sell cosmetics?” 

“It’s a fairly big operation, John,” Phil pointed out. “Quite a bit of dosh involved. Some people will do pretty much anything when there’s large amounts of money to be made.” 

“You’re still thinking like a plod, mate. The kind of magic involved… there’s got to be some other kind of reward. Something else to gain.” He dug through his pockets for a cigarette and lit up, ignoring Jessica’s frown. “Helps me think,” he told her. “Problem is, we need more info, someone on the inside.” 

“Not an easy job, mate,” Phil told him, sipping at his tea. “They’re paranoid, this lot. They’re pretty well up on the security side of things. It’d be possible to sneak someone in, but we’d need a couple of things – a willing body and a distraction.” 

“I might be able to help there, Uncle Phil,” Jessica cut in. “Seeing how neither of you fit the Cottage Magic profile, I could go in…” 

“No go,” Phil cut in before Constantine could. The magician gave the former policeman a puzzled look. 

“Why not? Seems to me she’s perfect. Look right proper in one of those little pink suits.” 

“They know her face – we’ve already tried going in once, remember?” 

Jessica made a dismissive gesture. “Yes, but I could easily cast a glamour…” 

“And have this lot sniff you out in five minutes, I don’t think so,” Constantine jeered. “The calibre of craft they’ve used on this whole thing, I doubt they’d miss you and your little spells. An’ not everything’s about magic, my girl – the sooner you learn not to use it, the better off you’ll be.” 

“What about the distraction? You said you could help with that?” Phil’s interruption neatly forestalled a debate on the ethics of magic. 

“There’s a big gathering, some kind of morale boosting exercise. I think the sheep are getting nervous, what with the deaths recently, and so the big bosses are putting on a party for them at the Big House,” said Jessica. “I thought with so many people on the site, it might be a good time for someone to slip in unnoticed.” 

“Not a bad idea, love,” Phil beamed. “How did you find that out?” 

“The mystic arts allow me to know a great many things…” Jessica began, but caught Constantine’s mocking expression and sighed. “Fine. Auntie Marjorie told me. She has a friend whose daughter works for a local catering firm, and was telling her all about it at the shops a few days ago. She told me when I went around yesterday for morning tea.” 

“Nothing like local knowledge.” With a grunt Phil levered himself up from the chair he’d been sitting in. “Well, that’s the distraction covered, but who are we going to send in? Not Marjorie – besides the fact I wouldn’t ask her to put herself in danger, she’d forget where she was and start blabbing about everything like she was at her book club meeting.” 

“Don’t you worry, Phil, old mate. I think I’ve got a candidate for you. Just the right type, level-headed, and, if I’ve got her pegged right, she’ll jump at the chance to get closer to this whole mess.” The smirk was positively indecent in its glee. “And you’re going to owe me big time for this one.” 

“When don’t I?” Phil asked rhetorically as he followed Constantine out of Jessica’s small cottage. “Bye, love, thanks for the tea.” 

Jessica waved from her doorway, wind whipping at her flowing skirts and loose hair. “You’re welcome, Uncle. Don’t let that smug git take advantage, you hear?” she called back, heedless of whether Constantine heard her. 

He did. “I could say the same myself, love. Keep that kid out of this – she’s too young to be getting mixed up in this shit.” 

“But…” Jessica began. 

“Don’t give me that guff about natural talent and being able to handle it. You’re not much more than a child yourself, and you’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re fucking around with. Stay away from Phil’s grandkiddy. Or you’ll have to answer to me.” With that, Constantine led the way back across the wind-swept hillside. 

*** 

Michaela lay her cosmetics kit on the top of the pile of clothing in her suitcase and closed the lid, snapping the clasps with a little more vim than necessary. Lips pressed into a thin line, she lifted the small case from the bed and set it by the door. Two weeks, lost. Months of investigation, wasted. And all because of her idiotic weakness for a bit of playtime in the shape of a tumble with some shifty bloke in a ratty trench coat. She wasn’t sure who she was angrier with, herself or that highly irritating man she’d had the misfortune to meet. Obviously she couldn’t stay in this town, not after the scene he’d made, not without her every move noted and discussed over shop counters and over tea tables the length and breadth of the place. And sooner or later, word would get to her quarry, and then the game would be well and truly up. 

Just as she was scooping up the pile of case files (that had taken her the good part of a day to re-arrange, after their demolition by her ‘guest’ – she really was going to have to bring this problem of hers up at her next session…), there was a knock on the door. Not the polite genteel tapping of her landlady, or the ponderous slow thud of that worthy’s husband, but a confident, almost arrogant, rapping. 

“Yes?” she asked, opening the door just slightly ajar – she still had case files spread all over the bed. 

The bad news from the night before grinned at her. “Hello, love.” 

“Fuck off,” she replied, and tried to slam the door in his face. Instead she managed to slam it on the foot that suddenly appeared in the gap. “I mean it, you shit. Fuck off or I really will call the police this time.” 

“No need, love. I brought my own.” Michaela opened the door slightly wider, and Constantine’s faced was joined by another, older and far more familiar. And no more welcome for all that. 

“Shit. Kingston.” 

“Guv? What the hell are you doing here?” Phil seemed totally shocked to see her, which was good. Obviously her cover hadn’t been completely blown – yet. 

“Now, then love, are you going to invite us in, or do we have to conduct business in the corridor? No skin off my nose, either way, but you might feel the locals have had enough entertainment at your expense already.” That infuriating grin still in place, Constantine pushed the door wider open, and she reluctantly let him. Best to see what the cocky little bastard wanted. And he was right – the locals had seen more than enough already. 

“Fine,” she said flatly. “Help yourself.” The files didn’t matter with these two – Constantine had already gotten his sticky fingers all over them and their exposure to Kingston might actually be a help rather than a hindrance to her task. 

“What the hell are you doing here, guv?” Kingston repeated. His retirement had vanished from his mind, and he fell easily back into the old terms. They’d never really gotten on – he was firmly of the old school of policing, whilst she was one of the bright young stars, university trained and groomed for command – but there had been a degree of grudging respect there. Michaela had been sorry to see him go after the cock-up with the pedophile deaths, but relieved at the same time. If he proved an obstacle to her case, she’d go right through him, respect or not. 

“Thought I’d take the country air,” she told him blandly, and he frowned, brow furrowing even further and adding to the years already stacked up on his face. He’d aged, badly, in the time he’d been rotting up here. Then he caught sight of the case files, and the frown became concentrated. 

“You’re after the Cottage Magic mob?” he asked. Before she could answer, Constantine piped up from where he was sitting in the small room’s only chair, feet propped up on the tiny dresser. 

“She’s been doing a bit of extracurricular work, haven’t you, love?” 

Michaela ignored the suggestive tone and the leer, but it was not lost on Kingston. He gave Constantine a half-amused, half-disgusted look. “Figures.” His gaze focussed back on Michaela. “So, I wouldn’t be wrong in thinking it was you who found out my source at the Met?” 

She allowed herself a small satisfied smile. “Barton got sloppy and left some papers in the photocopier. I got curious about what he was up to, and did a bit of digging on my own. You’d be surprised what I came up with.” 

“Yeah, well, you’ve got all the resources, haven’t you? I’ve been doing it DIY up here.” Kingston lowered himself slowly onto the bed, clearing a space first. He shuffled through the files, reading the names embossed on the covers. “This many? They’ve gotten at this many?” 

“Cottage Magic has a wide reach, yes,” she told him dispassionately. “As pyramid schemes go, it’s pretty successful.” 

“Except for the nasty habit of offing the odd Avon lady,” cut in Constantine. Michaela gave him an irritated look, but swallowed the emotion in favour of keeping things professional. Especially after the… unprofessionalism of the night before. 

“You said something about business?” she asked him crisply. 

“What would you say to the opportunity of getting a better look at this crew?” 

“Go on.” 

“We need someone on the plot, someone who can go undercover,” Kingston elaborated. 

“And you thought of me? No guesses whose idea it was.” Michaela said slightly sourly. She tapped her chin with her forefinger, appearing to ponder the offer, even though her mind was already made up. “And obviously it’s dangerous, or you’d have used someone else, someone closer to that extended family you have up here, Kingston.” He made no move to contradict her, and she nodded. That was the thing about Phil Kingston, he wasn’t one to try and sugar coat things. “All right, you’ve got yourself a cosmetics salesperson. When and how?” 

*** 

Geraldine sat back in her plush maroon desk chair, careful not to let the phone receiver pressed to her ear disarray her hair. 

“So, they’ve finally decided to stop skulking in the background and make a move, have they? How interesting.” She paused, listening to the person on the other end of the line. “A new player, you say? Goes by the name of John Constantine?” Geraldine’s face sharpened, became more predatory. The expression that crossed her features could have been one of anticipation, or possibly alarm. It was hard to tell, beneath the masking foundation. “Describe him.” 

The tinny squeak of the voice on the other end of the line went on for some time, getting somewhat animated and punctuated by Geraldine’s “uh-huhs” and “hmm-hmms”. When at last the voice stopped (or possibly paused for breath), the make-up mogul cut in. “This man is not entirely unknown to us. In fact, we have found him to be something of an… irritation in the past.” A chuckle. “Yes, he is an annoying little insect, isn’t he? You did well – I’ll handle it from now on. No sense showing all our cards just yet; you might be useful later. I’ll be in touch.” 

Hanging up, Geraldine pondered for a moment, tapping a perfectly-painted nail against her chin. Then she came to a decision, and pressed a button on her intercom. “Sally? Send Elaine in, will you?” 

“Certainly,” came the reply, only slightly distorted. Geraldine had wanted everything state-of-the-art, and that hadn’t come cheaply, but it was worth it. Besides, money wasn’t exactly a factor, at this stage of the game. 

The door opened, admitting a woman who could have been Geraldine’s younger sister, right down to the mask-like make up. “You summoned?” 

Geraldine smiled, not even attempting to mask the teeth. They gleamed in the dim light, long and sharp. “I need you to fetch something for me. It’s time our errant ex-police officer discovered what he’s up against. First hand.” 

Elaine’s answering smile was no less toothy. “Who? The wife or the grand-daughters?” 

“Grand-daughter, I think. Children are so much more… portable. The bigger one.” 

There was the slightest hint of a pout on Elaine’s face. “Not the little one? She’s so _delicious_ , I could just eat her up.” 

“Which is precisely why I’m sending you for the other – I need a hostage, not a snack.” Seeing Elaine subside into mutinous obedience, Geraldine smiled again. “And besides, you can always have her later. Once I’m finished with her. As a treat.” 

Elaine’s eyes gleamed red. “You’re too good to me, mother.” 


	5. Skin Deep

Alice knew there was something wrong as soon as she touched the front doorknob. She could _feel_ the menace emanating from it.

“Carrie,” she told her younger sibling. “Why don’t you go play with the O’Donohue’s? I’ll come fetch you later.” Her voice was remarkably natural, her smile unforced – the only sign of the tension running through her like an electric current was the white-knuckled death grip she had on the doorknob. Carrie, pleased with the suggestion, didn’t even hesitate. She loved playing with the O'Donohue tribe, even though Marjorie (and after a certain amount of prodding, Phil) felt they weren't exactly 'suitable company'; there had been the notable incident where Carrie had showed off some choice new-found vocabulary in front of her grandmother's book club. Alice hadn't known what the words meant, any more than Carrie (and possibly young Timmy O'Donohue, who had taught them to her), but the effect on the good ladies of the parish had been catastrophic to the budding friendship.

Alice waited until Carrie's blue anorak had disappeared past the next house before opening the door and stepping into the hallway.

Voices were coming from the sitting room, her grandmother sounding curious and chatty, and the other voice answering her questions in a strangely resonant tone, like there were two people speaking at exactly the same time. One tone was a woman's, high and fluttery. The other was raspy, evil-sounding - its insectile buzz sent nasty chills down Alice's spine worse than fingernails on a blackboard. For a second she was gripped by an overwhelming urge to run away and hide, a very long way away indeed. But if she did that, the Awful Thing in there would hurt her grandmother, or worse, kill her. An image of her mother's bloody corpse hovered for an instant in her mind's eye. It was up to her - there was no-one else. Taking a deep breath to still the trembling, Alice pushed open the sitting room door.

"... so if I get the full set, I get a bonus lipstick and blush for free? That sounds like a good bargain." Marjorie looked up as the door opened and beamed at her eldest grandchild. "Alice! Home so soon? Well, take yourself upstairs, pet, and put your things away, and Nanna will make you some hot cocoa as soon as she's done talking to the lady. Where's Carrie? Upstairs already?"

"Carrie's at the O'Donohue's," Alice managed faintly, her eyes not leaving the figure sitting in the floral-patterned armchair opposite her grandmother.

It was a monster. It was wearing a pastel-pink business suit, and had its legs neatly crossed, and its blond hair was perfectly coiffed in place, but it was a monster all the same. Because only monsters have a mass of festering sores dribbling green pus instead of a face, only a monster would have maggots squirming out of those sores and wriggling in and out of the empty eye sockets, and only a monster would be able to look at her with those empty sockets burning red like windows into hell and make her feel like her soul was being stripped away.

"The O'Donohue's? Alice, you know I don't like Carrie to go there. Who knows what she'll come home with. Go and fetch her at once," Marjorie said, crossly. Then she remembered her guest. "I'm sorry... Elaine, wasn't it? Family matters, you understand."

"Of course." The thing in the pink suit smiled, and Alice's stomach heaved as the maggots writhed anew. Some fell into the cup of tea balanced in the monster's manicured hands, floating on the surface, and Alice couldn't help wincing as it took a sip, slurping the grubs back into her mouth. It noted Alice's reaction with an intrigued raised eyebrow, which caused whole new permutations in the maggot situation.

'I won't be sick, I won't be sick, I _can't_ be sick, not all over Nanna’s good sitting room carpet...' Alice thought desperately, her mouth flooding with that awful pre-vomit taste.

"Alice? I thought I told you to fetch your sister." Not used to being ignored, especially by the usually-attentive Alice, Marjorie's tone grew sharper.

"I can't," Alice whispered, still unable to look away from the horror before her, drinking its tea with an unconcerned air. Of course her grandmother didn't understand, couldn’t see the true nature of her visitor, otherwise she'd have dropped dead on the doorstep as soon as she opened the door...

"Alice, I won't have this kind of behaviour in my house, do you understand. Go and fetch Carrie, at once!"

"Better mind your grandmother, sweetie," added the monster, licking its scabby lips with a forked and scaly tongue. The expression on its face could only be described as 'hungry'. Alice shuddered, but remained where she was standing. It was bad enough that her grandmother was here – as annoying as Carrie could be, she wasn't about to offer her little sister up to this thing as a snack. She was better off away, safe.

"I'm sorry, Nanna, but I _can't_." Alice's voice was pleading. Marjorie frowned, and two red spots burned in her cheeks - she was mortified by this shameful defiance, and in front of company, too! What would people say of her child rearing, should they hear of it?

"I'm so embarrassed, Elaine dear. I can't imagine what's gotten into her. Alice is such an _obedient_ child usually. Alice, go to your room at once. Your grandfather will hear of this, when he gets back."

"Don't be too hard on the child, my dear Mrs Kingston. It's not her fault. It's quite touching, really. She only wants to protect you." Elaine smiled again, and this time her long, sharp fangs showed. The hung down so long they gashed into her bottom lip, but no blood flowed, only more of that green pus.

"Protect me? Whatever from?" Marjorie half-rose from her chair, setting her cup down on the low table.

"Why, from me, of course. What else?" And with that the monster reached out and grabbed Marjorie by the throat. With a faint sense of incongruity, Alice noted the long talons were painted a frosty pink that matched the outfit. Marjorie gasped, hands ineffectually clawing at the grip that was cutting off her oxygen. Then she clutched at her chest, stiffening, before falling completely limp in the iron grip.

"Nanna!" Alice meant it as a scream, but only a horrified whisper emerged.

"Now then, little miss, it's your turn. You've been invited to a party, isn’t that nice? I’m to escort you there." Elaine hissed, dropping the old woman’s inert body on the carpet with a sickening thump. The girl let out a strangled squeak of terror as those long claws reached for her...

...only to be repelled in a shower of blue sparks. A nauseating smell of burned meat filled the room.

"You little _bitch_!" Elaine held her wounded hand to her breast, cradling the hurt. "Filthy little _whore_. You're warded!"

Slowly Alice nodded, pulling an ordinary length of wool from under her school jumper, a stone with a hole through the middle suspended from it.

"Auntie gave it to me," she said, with a small ten-year-old smirk on her face. "You can't touch me, Monster."

"Maybe not." A slow grin of pure evil crossed those ragged lips. "But your dear grandmamma isn't warded, witchling. And I'm getting rather peckish. It’s just about teatime, isn’t it?"

***

“I kept a lot of Chrissie’s stuff after she was killed,” Kingston was saying as he led Constantine and Michaela down a series of winding back streets to a row of lock-ups behind the main street of the town. “Marjorie thinks it all went to Oxfam, she wanted it gone, so the kids wouldn’t have t’ see it, but I couldn’t. I thought they might want to know more about their mum one day, so I rented this lock up and stored it all here. Marjorie hasn’t a clue.” He pulled out a keyring, selected one and opened the heavy padlock.

“Seems to me there’s a lot Marjorie hasn’t got a clue about,” Constantine said, pulling his collar up against the growing chill in the darkening evening air; the nights were definitely getting longer, it was only five-ish. Kingston scowled at the implied insult, but didn’t say anything. The change in the man from the defeated pensioner of the previous day was amazing, and Constantine was willing to bet that part of it was being out of the house, acting like a man and not a whipped dog. He’d had Kington’s wife pegged from the start – a control freak from way back; there was no doubt who ruled the roost in that rose-festooned cottage.

“Are you sure you can find what we need in all this?” asked Michaela, eyeing the stacked boxes and bags inside the small space suspiciously. “We could be here all night.”

Kingston shrugged and pulled the cord hanging from the single globe hanging from the ceiling. Immediately it clicked on, illuminating the crowded space. “Bit of an exaggeration, guv. It’ll take a couple of hours, but we’ve got the time. This thing doesn’t start until midnight – bloody stupid if you ask me, having a midnight ceremony, it’s a dead give away they’re into something. What’s your rush?”

“She’s got a hot date waiting for her,” cut in Constantine before she could reply, winking at her suggestively.

“You wish,” she retorted, realising as she did that she sounded like a teenaged schoolgirl and hating him all the more for it. What made it worse was she had actually been toying with the idea, in the back of her mind.

“Now, now, children, behave or there’ll be no supper for either of you,” Kingston said, his tone clearly mocking. Constantine merely grinned and lit another cigarette, but Michaela flushed briefly red. Ignoring the two of them, she walked into the small shed and lifted aside a small box. 

“I, for one, don’t intend to be here any longer than I have to,” she told them crisply. Kingston shrugged and joined her.

“Come on, John, give us a hand. Sooner we find what we’re looking for, the sooner we’re for the pub,” he called over his shoulder. Constantine took a few more drags and tossed away the butt of his cigarette.

“Right you are, then.”

***

“Carrie, don’t you think it’s time you were getting off home? It’s almost tea-time.” Mrs O’Donohue, plump and jolly, was very much a mother, Carrie often thought. Not _her_ mother, who was becoming less and less easy to remember now, but a _mother_. Some people just were. She looked up from where she was playing Legos with Timmy and pouted, just a little.

“Alice told me she’d come get me, Mrs O’Donohue. She’ll be cross if I come back without her, especially in the dark.”

“What about your Nanna, lovie? Won’t she be worried about you?”

“P’raps,” Carrie admitted reluctantly. Then she added, with a flash of child-logic: “But if she was worried she’d have sent Alice to get me, so she maybe she’s not worried at all!”

Mrs O’Donohue frowned, but accepted this. She knew what Marjorie Kingston thought of her and her family, and she wasn’t up for the confrontation that taking Carrie home herself would entail. Besides, John would be home soon, and there was the tea to be put on, and the baby to be seen to…

“We’ll wait then, lovie, and after tea our Thomas can walk you home if Alice hasn’t come for you yet.”

“Okay.” Carrie turned back to the castle she and Timmy were building with an unconcerned air.

***

_~‘I’m not here, this isn’t happening, I just need to wake up and it’s all a bad dream, and if I call Mummy will come and make it all better…’~_

“Well done, Elaine. No trouble, I take it?”

“Of course not, Mother. She’s just a child. Why would there be any trouble?”

_~‘There’s no such things as monsters, I’m too old to believe in magic and this is all make-believe and I can stop it any time I want…’~_

“I can’t help but notice you’re hiding your hands, dear.”

“It’s nothing, Mother. I chipped my nail polish, and I’m horribly embarrassed about it. That’s all.”

“That’s all right, then, Elaine. Make sure you tend to it.”

“I will, Mother.

_~‘I’m safe and warm tucked up in my own bed and any moment now Nanna’s going to come and tell me it’s time to wake up for school…’~_

“Is there any reason why she’s so… unresponsive?”

“I would have said ‘catatonic’, Mother. But no, I didn’t do anything to the little brat. See, there’s not a scratch on her.”

“I admire your restraint my dear. Now, better go and see to that… nail polish, wasn’t it? We all have to be looking our best for tonight, don’t we?”

“Yes, Mother.”

_~’…only a dream, only a dream, a _bad_ dream, but a dream just the same and I’m sure I’ll wake up any second now…’~_

“Oh, and Elaine? Those two girls – what were their names again?”

“Carla and Sharon?”

“Yes, them. We won’t be needing them for the ceremony now, so why don’t you take care of them?

“Of course, Mother.”

_’The monster’s gone and I’m safe now, it’s only a dream and I want Nanna to come wake me up, I want my Nanna, I want my Nan, no, I want my mum, I want my mummy, even though she’s dead under the train, I know she can come back, because that’s what the monster is, it’s dead people, dead people walking around and if it can come back then my mummy can, _please_ come back…’_

Alice’s desperate mental litany was cut off as Geraldine grasped her chin, forcing her slack face upwards, holding her eyes with her own, making her _see_.

Alice screamed, a high, desperate sound, and Geraldine smiled.

“Oh, we’re going to have so much fun with you, witchling. Oh yes, all kinds of fun and games. And we’ll make your dearest grandpapa watch shall we? Him, and his friend.”

“…friend?” Alice squeaked, voice torn from screaming.

“Oh yes, his friend. The one in the trench coat. Constantine.” The mask that was Geraldine’s face wavered, blurred for a moment, revealing again the horror that had threatened to derail the child’s fragile sanity. “Yes, that one. We know him well, where I come from. He’s notorious, you might say.” Her grip on Alice’s chin tightened, and blood trickled down the soft skin as those long, talon-like nails cut in. “Oh yes, he’ll come, and we’ll be waiting for him, won’t we?”

Alice whimpered.

***

“It’s always the last place y’ look, isn’t it?” Kingston said cheerily as he unearthed a box marked “Cottage Magic” from underneath several others. “Here we are.”

“About time,” muttered Michaela sourly, brushing dust from her clothes, only to have more added as Kingston handed her the box. It smelled cloyingly sweet, too many different scents competing for space in her nose. “It’s all here? Everything I need?”

“Should be. You want to check it, guv?” Kingston was already reassembling the three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle that was the lock-up’s contents, stacking boxes moved in the search, grunting a little as he moved the larger items.

“No, I trust your impeccable organisational skills, Sergeant,” Michaela replied, dryly. Constantine snorted and picked up his coat from where he’d draped it over some boxes – it had gotten in the way of the moving of things. The action wasn’t lost on either police member.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” asked Kingston, pausing in his labours.

“Walking the lady back to her hotel, of course,” Constantine replied, grinning as he shrugged back into the trench coat. “She’s going to need help with that box, isn’t she?”

“And I don’t with all o’ these?” Kingston said, then sighed, seeing it was a waste of breath. “Go on, then. I’ll see you later. The Manor House, ten-thirty, got it?”

“Got it. See you then.” Constantine took the box from Michaela with one swift movement and was off down the alley before she’d processed just what the hell had happened.

“What? How?” She realised that Constantine was making off with her undercover disguise, and trotted after him, realising as she did how ridiculous it made her look. “Now listen, you oik, give that box to me right now!”

“Just cutting to the chase, love. We both know what we want – so why waste time pretending and dancing around and arguing and just get to the fun part?” Constantine looked at her over the top of the box, still wearing that damnable grin, the one that said ‘Sure, I’m a bastard. Never said I wasn’t. And you know you can’t resist it, so why bother?’ And the worst of it was that he was exactly right – they’d both known it from the moment he’d shown up at her door that afternoon.

“You’ve got some nerve,” she told him. He nodded.

“Yeah, that’s me. Now, we’ve got a few hours before we have to report back to Daddy Kingston – how about we find our own entertainment?”

Michaela sighed, feeling desire coiling in her gut. Oh yes, this wasn’t something she should do, but she was going to do it all the same. She wrapped her hand around his upper arm, feeling the muscles tightened against the weight of the box. “Arrogant prick. My place, then?”

“Thought you’d never ask, love.”

***

The roller door screeched and clattered closed, and Kingston bent to replace the padlock with a wince – his back wasn’t terribly impressed with the demands he’d made on it. He checked the time – eight-ten – and decided to head home for a bit. If only to avert the shitstorm his absence for an entire night would generate. Besides, his growling stomach reminded him, it was well-past teatime. He had considered spending the intervening time in the pub with Constantine, but that plan had been neatly scuppered by the Londoner’s sexual charisma. And with the Guv’nor, too – too bad he wasn’t on the Force any more, he’d have had a great tale to tell the lads. The DI was respected, but not well-liked, especially amongst the older coppers. It was more than just natural distrust of someone on the fast track, university educated, groomed for command from day one – there was the feeling that she was in it for herself, that one day, should it come to it, she wouldn’t be there to get your back. And in the policeman’s world, that was an unforgivable sin. Having leverage – like her apparent preference for a bit of rough trade – gave you something to hold her on, a grip on her slippery professional exterior. Maybe he’d make a couple of calls when he got back home…

The road unrolled before him without his noticing, so wrapped in thought was he. Almost unnoticed too, was the fact he was thinking like a cop again, when for so long he’d barely thought at all. He realised, with a start, that he’d missed it. It was like he’d been dead all these months, and suddenly come back to life. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to go back to the way he was, idling through what remained of his life. No, it was time he and Marjorie had a Talk.

He was at his front gate before he realised something was wrong. The cottage should have been gently blazing with light, a comforting glow in the cold autumn darkness. Instead, its windows were darkened, the front door hanging half-open, and there was a smell, like burnt meat…

Kingston’s heart gave a nasty lurch in his chest.

“Marjorie? Alice? Carrie?” His shout echoed through the cold hallway, and his eyes were momentarily dazzled as he hit the light switch. Blinking furiously, Kingston followed the burnt meat smell into the sitting room, barking his shin on a footstool that had been knocked over. The fear chilling his heart threatened to freeze it entirely when he saw the prone form of his wife, crumpled on the floor like a discarded rag doll.

“Marjorie!” In two great shambling steps he was by her side, dropping to his knees and reaching for the pulse in her neck. Her skin felt as fragile as wet tissue under his fingers, and the throb of her heartbeat was weak and faltering. Mentally thanking a God he hadn’t truly believed in since his first child molestation case as a young constable, he half-turned, reaching for the phone where it had been knocked to the floor. His knee landed on something small and hard as he lifted it. Wincing, he shifted and picked up the object. A stone, just a plain, ordinary river-stone, smooth and dull brown. The water’s action had eroded a small hole through the middle of it, and a length of pink, fuzzy wool had been threaded through it.

It was the same length of pink, fuzzy wool he’d often seen peeking out from beneath the collar of Alice’s school tunic.

“Mr Kingston, what’s happened? What’s that sme… Mrs Kingston! Is she all right?” It was one of the O’Donohue tribe from down the road, the oldest lad. Dimly registering his presence, Phil looked up from the stone lying in his palm to see the gangling young man bending over Marjorie. A small sound by the door caught his attention and he saw Carrie hovering there, eyes large and frightened.

“Still alive, but she needs a doctor, Mr Kingston. Have you called the ambulance yet? Are they coming?”

Kingston looked down at the phone receiver in his hand. “Not yet,” he said distantly. “I was just about to.” He shook his head, trying to focus, and then thrust the phone at the boy – Thomas, that was his name, wasn’t it? – and staggered to his feet. “Take care of Carrie for me, all right?”

“Sure, our Mum will look after her. But what about you? Where are you going?” Thomas looked up at him in confusion, phone momentarily forgotten. Phil looked at Carrie, and then down at the stone in his hand. He closed his fingers over it, clutching it hard in his fist, the wool dangling.

“They’ve taken Alice. I’ve got to go fetch her. Take care of them, all right?” And before Thomas could protest or question him further, Kingston had hurried out of the small house and into the dark and windy night.

***

“So, how do I look?”

Constantine, returning from the shower Michaela had insisted he take after their bout of love-making – “To put it plainly, you reek,” she had told him, tossing him a towel and a blue plastic soap holder – leered appreciatively. Chrissie Kingston had been a little shorter and a shade less full-figured than the DI, so the pastel pink business suit was a touch too small, but the effect was… stirring, to say the least. Michaela rolled her eyes at him as just _how_ stirring the effect was became apparent under the towel wrapped around his waist.

“The very model of a door-to-door cosmetics salesperson,” he told her. “You can ring on my doorbell any time.”

“Didn’t we already do that?” She turned back to the mirror above the small dresser, adjusting her hair and makeup.

“Obviously not enough if you can’t remember it.” Discarding the towel, Constantine reached for her, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her to him, pressing his erection into her warm body. She stiffened, seemingly about to protest, then she reached up behind his head and grabbed a handful of sandy hair, pulling him forcefully in for a deep kiss.

“Hold that thought,” she told him when they broke for air. “But right now we have Kingston’s Satanic midnight mass to infiltrate.” She ran her thumb over his lips, wiping off the pink lipstick she’d left behind. “Now, get your trousers on and let’s get going.”

“Suppose I don’t want to?” he said, pulling her close again and nibbling on her neck. The mingled scents of soap and perfume on her skin made his head spin, and he inhaled deeply.

“You will.” She arched her neck briefly, allowing him better access, then pulled away, holding him at arm’s length. “Now, John.”

He considered her, frowning slightly. She ran her finger down his chest, a knowing smile on her face. “We can play later, I promise.”

“What…” Constantine’s eyes clouded briefly, half-closing. Michaela leaned in again, kissed him lingeringly.

“Time to go,” she murmured. Constantine licked his bottom lip, collecting the film of lipstick she had left behind. When Michaela handed him his shirt, he took it without protest.

“Fine, love. If you insist.” He pulled on the shirt, and went over to where his trousers were lying puddled on the floor. Satisfied, Michaela turned back to the mirror, pulled her lipstick out of her purse and reapplied it to her full lips. The lamplight gleamed on the silver writing down the side of the slim black case – “cigaM egattoC” read the reflection. Over her shoulder she could see Constantine pulling on his shoes.

“Are you ready, John?” she asked.

“Whenever you are, love.”

“Then let’s go. We don’t want to keep them waiting, do we?”


	6. It All Hits The Fan

Nora checked her watch as the taxi pulled up smartly outside the manor’s front gate. 11.26pm. Perfect. Plenty of time to get to where she needed to go. She’d make with the obligatory socialising (networking was crucial in the business of cosmetic sales), find the appropriate seat (close enough that the walk to the stage wasn’t uncomfortably long, far enough that everyone would see her doing it), and then, finally, get what was coming to her, what she deserved, what she’d _earned_. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, she’d gotten the paperwork for her final sign-up faxed into Head Office that morning. There had been a phone call from none other than Geraldine herself that lunchtime, letting her know she had finally qualified for diamond, and the presentation would be at the regional meeting that evening. She’d been waiting so long, Geraldine had purred down the phone, sending delighted shivers down her spine, and she’d been so _close_ last meeting, that they were more than happy to rush the paperwork through. She’d fax the necessary documents for signing, of course…

She gave the driver his fare with little grace – he’d attempted to get fresh with her as he picked her up from the station, chatting to her like he actually _knew_ her, the cheek of it… Nora had cut him down to size fairly quickly, and he had taken the hint. The look he gave her as she exited the car was noted, however – impertinence indeed! Turning her back, she headed up the gravelled drive and through the cast-iron gates, welcomingly wide-open to admit the streams of pink business-suit clad women. They all wore the same air of smug success as Nora, greeting each other with false smiles and falser warmth in their voices. Each was a competitor, a rung on the ladder to success, to be trodden upon and crushed underfoot in the scramble to the top. Casting her gaze around, Nora wrinkled her nose in distaste as she saw the scruffy, trench-coated man seemingly attached to Michaela Robbins at the hip. He was nuzzling her neck and she was obviously enjoying it, tilting her head so he had better access.

“Disgraceful,” Nora muttered to herself, but not _too_ loud. Everyone knew Michaela was one of Geraldine’s chosen, freed from the endless round of sales and networking to do other, secret projects. It was rumoured that she gathered information on their competitors, finding suitable dirt to discredit and ruin them. And more – it was said she vetted distributors, checking on their records to make sure they were ‘the right stuff’ for Cottage Magic. You didn’t upset Michaela; she had real power in the organisation, power to ruin all you’d achieved. 

The dark-haired woman smirked at Nora, feeling the waves of disapproval the older woman was radiating. The silly cow didn’t know that with every kiss, every inhalation, Constantine was becoming more compliant. The soap Michaela had washed with, the shampoo, the perfume, the lipstick… It was all Cottage Magic’s finest, imbued with a strong cocktail of herbs and other less savoury spell components, designed to overcome even the strongest will. And it worked all the more effectively for being administered this way – had they simply tried to inject the London mage with it, he would have been able to resist. By letting him think he was in control of the situation, he had no idea, let alone a defence. Added to that his greatest weakness, that of a bit of crumpet, and the mage had stood no chance. For once her own preference for a bit of rough play had paid off – she’d had no idea who he was that first night, but once she’d gotten word from Geraldine, it had been easy enough to… to… Michaela frowned. Geraldine’s instructions had been to step back, let them deal with it. It had been _her_ decision to take Constantine back to her room… hadn’t it? She couldn’t quite remember…

“You all right, love?” Constantine paused in his exploration of the soft skin of her neck as she swayed slightly, raising a trembling hand to her forehead. Christ, this bird was something else; he couldn’t seem to think of anything else but fucking her. Hell, if it wasn’t for the fact it was as cold as a lawyer’s smile out here, he’d have her clothes off right now. For a moment he wondered at himself, then he shrugged and decided it didn’t matter. She was obviously unable to resist his charms, and why the hell not?

“I’m fine,” she said briefly. “Let’s go. I’m sure Geraldine is waiting for us.” Yes, that was right – she fixed her mind on this one thing, sure it was the correct thing to do.

“Geraldine?”

“My boss. She’s something of a fan of yours.”

“She is, is she?” Constantine grinned, ignoring the voice deep inside his brain that said he _never_ attracted the good sort of attention. “Well, let’s make her acquaintance, shall we?”

***

Kingston’s feet hit the damp ground with a thump, and he collapsed into the impact, preferring to get wet and muddy than to break an ankle. Thank God the ground was reasonably boggy here, little more than reclaimed marsh – he’d never have been able to make the jump from the top of a twelve-foot wall in the city with all its concrete. All the attention seemed to be at the front of the manor, the security relaxed in order to let in the army of Avon ladies. Or perhaps he was expected. Kingston shrugged; it wasn’t important. Trap or not – and trap seemed pretty bloody likely – his grand-daughter was in there and he wasn’t leaving without her. Still, he wished he’d been able to raise Constantine – he and the DI hadn’t been answering any calls, and there hadn’t been the time to go there in person and drag him out by the short and curlies. 

No, he thought as he picked himself up, ignoring the dampness seeping into his trousers, he was on his own with this one, at least until the DI and Constantine surfaced for the rendezvous. If they remembered in between fucks, that was. Slowly, with the caution of more than twenty years on the beat, Kingston crept towards the rear of the building, avoiding the patches of warm yellow light spilling onto the grounds from the large windows. He was alone in a dangerous situation, he had no back-up, and he’d never felt so alive in all his life.

***

“Where’s Nanna and Grandad? And Alice? I want to go home,” Carrie whined, as she had been asking every five minutes for the past hour. Mrs O’Donohue sighed with the patience only five children could give her.

“Nanna’s sick, lovie; she’s in the hospital. And your Grandad’s out looking for Alice. He said I was to look after you until he got back.”

“But _where_ is she?” Tears trembled in Carrie’s eyes, echoing the trembling of her bottom lip. “Where’s Alice?”

‘Good question,’ Mrs O’Donohue thought to herself. Her eldest son had returned with Carrie so suddenly, babbling about Mrs Kingston being poorly and the ambulance had been called, and Mr Kingston taken over strangely, saying someone had Alice and he was going to go fetch her back… She didn’t say any of this to the small girl looking at her with such big worried eyes. Instead she enveloped Carrie in a hug, saying: “Don’t worry, lovie, I’m sure your Grandad will bring her home soon…”

***

Creeping through the gardens, using the shrubbery as cover, Kingston froze suddenly as two women dressed in the pink business suits of the Cottage Magic distributors came out onto the small patio. He crouched uncomfortably in the rhododendrons and heard the sound of a lighter being flicked several times, then smelt the familiar tang of burning tobacco. 

“Did you see Ms High-and-Mighty’s bit of totty?” said one, giggling slightly. “Bit of a comedown, wasn’t he?”

“I always thought Michaela Robbins was too good to be true – now we’ve got proof,” replied the other. “I wouldn’t be caught dead with something like that – did you see that trench coat? And that hair… who does he think he is, Sting?”

Kingston shifted slightly so he could see the two smokers better. The DI was known to these people? And she’d brought Constantine in with her? It could be part of some elaborate ruse taught to her in Elite Policing, but he doubted it. No, from where he stood, things smelled. And it wasn’t just the cow shit they used as fertiliser in this particular garden bed.

“And she’s taken him up to see Geraldine… Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall? Geraldine’s going to have them both served on a platter.”

“Which means Michaela’s place is going to be open. Makes you wonder who’ll fill the space, doesn’t it?” There was the sound of a chime – the ponderous ding-dong of the three quarter hour sounded by a grandfather clock, and the two quickly took one last drag, cheeks sucked into skeletal depth before blowing out clouds of blue smoke and crushing their half-smoked cigarettes under two-inch heels. Then they were gone, shoes clacking on the stone. Kingston remained still for a few more heartbeats, making sure the coast was well and truly clear, before sliding back into the shadows with a rustle of foliage. He rather doubted the two knew the true nature of the operation they were with – all this talk of platters and empty places was merely hyperbole. He shook his head. Women today… they were a cold, hard lot. But they’d given him some hope – Constantine was on the plot, and while he wasn’t sure he could rely on the Londoner, it could only mean appropriate amount of chaos in the mix.

***

“You _fool_!” Long nails raked across Michaela’s carefully-maintained complexion, digging deep tracks from which blood began to ooze, thick and crimson. “Complete and utter _moron_!! I told you to _wait_! And you bring him here, _now_?! He could bollocks up everything we’ve worked for! It’s too soon!”

Michaela backed away, clutching at her face. “But I thought…” she began, her cringing tone jarring with the personality Constantine had thought he knew.

“You _don’t_ think!” Geraldine advanced on her prey again, hand raised. Constantine tried to move, to interfere, but something was wrong, he couldn’t concentrate, and his feet seemed mired in the thick pile of the burgundy carpet. He tried to think, but his mind was awash with desire, images of her naked beneath him. Dimly he realised something had a hold of him, but the realisation wasn’t enough for him to pull free. Another blow landed, and Michaela wailed. “Understand, you insignificant bag of flesh, you do as you are told!” Geraldine raised her hand for another strike, fingers curled into talons.

“She did. I told her to bring him here.”

The voice from the doorway was familiar, recently-heard. Trying to think through the haze of horniness that gripped him, images of dolphins and unicorns came to Constantine’s mind.

“You.” Geraldine spat the word out like it was a piece of decaying worm found in an otherwise particularly toothsome mouthful. “Why are _you_ here?”

“I’ve always been here, you just didn’t realise it.” The dark-haired girl, dressed in floating lavender scarves and jingling jewellery – the name ‘Glinda’ sprang to Constantine’s befuddled mind for some reason – came forward, smiling gently. “You think I’d let you carry on so long without intervention?”

“You bitch.” Geraldine seemed unable to attack the girl who floated into the room on a cloud of incense-smell. Jessica – that was her name, the one Kingston had taken him to meet - smiled at her again. The older woman, who wasn’t a woman, that much was clear now, flinched. Ignoring Geraldine for the moment, Jessica crossed to where Constantine stood, helplessly and unaccountably immobile.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he grated, through senses drowning in the sweet intoxication of Michaela’s perfume. “Too big for you.”

“On the contrary, my dear man, it’s you who have stumbled into something bigger than your abilities,” Jessica purred, cupping his face in her hand. “Watch, and learn, and then tell me it’s too much for me.”

***

Kingston didn’t realise he’d stepped on the girl’s hand until she moaned.

“Jesus!” he swore despite himself, jumping back. She lay amidst the ruins of a privet hedge, its branches crushed and broken by the force of her fall – glancing up, he saw curtains flapping in an open window on an floor some twenty-five feet above. Aware he had little time, he knelt by her broken body and squeezed her shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes…” she breathed, the sound barely audible over the chatter of many voices he was catching through the manor’s windows.

“Can you move? Are you in pain?” The second question was stupid, he realised – in the dim light he could see the jagged ends of bones poking out through the skin of her left shin, and the dull sheen of fresh blood dribbling from her lips. Internal injuries, his training told him. “What’s your name, love?” he asked, a little more gently.

“Sharon…” she whispered, taking a painful breath. “I’m cold, mister. So cold.”

Shock, his mind supplied, and he took off his jacket and spread it over her, aware it would do little in the long run, but it was still _something_. “What happened, love?”

“A monster,” she told him matter-of-factly. “A monster ate Carla, and it was coming for me, so I threw myself out of the window so it wouldn’t have me.” Tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes. “Carla was my best friend, and she didn’t want to be here – I made her come. I k-killed her.”

“No, you didn’t, love. Those… monsters, upstairs, they killed your friend.” Kingston laid his gnarled hand on the girl’s cold cheek. “I’m going to stop them, if I can.”

“They didn’t need us any more,” Sharon continued, seeming to not hear him. “They had a little girl, and Elaine said they didn’t need us after all, so we were all hers, her just desserts…” More blood, thick and dark, drooled from between her lips. “And I didn’t want to die that way, so I went for the window, only it doesn’t matter anyway.”

“What doesn’t matter, love?” The skin beneath his fingers was icy cold, her breaths shorter and shorter – she wouldn’t last much longer.

“I’m going to Hell.” She opened her eyes, then, and looked at him, _truly_ looked at him. There was an expression of terrible desolation in those blue eyes. “I signed the contract and I’m going to Hell. Elaine told me.” A small rueful smile crossed her face. “Red ink. I _knew_ something was wrong. I should have listened to Carla.” 

“Red ink? Contract? What do you mean, Sharon? Are you telling me you sold your soul?” Urgency made Kingston shake her shoulder slightly, but she said no more, eyes staring sightlessly into the darkness. “Sharon?” He realised it was useless, she’d gone. He let her go and closed those staring dead eyes. Gone to Hell, if what she’d said was true. He thought of Chrissie, his son’s sweet-faced wife, and the way she’d joked about all the papers Cottage Magic had made her sign. Was she resting in peace? Or was her soul forever in torment, prey to the depravations of Hell’s minions? Not his boy’s Chrissie, who’d always tried to live well, and provide for her daughters, who had rescued injured animals and helped the elderly. Not Chrissie, crushed to death under the wheels of the 11.12 to York. Not her.

But in his memory he saw the contracts she’d signed, heard her mention Geraldine’s weird obsession with red ink, and he knew that it was true.

***

“You’ll ruin everything!” Geraldine almost wailed as Jessica smiled at her benignly. “Get away from me!”

“What’s the matter, Geraldine, surely you’re not scared of me, are you?” Jessica mocked. Constantine, struggling actively now against whatever drug Michaela had given him, saw the door behind her open, and tried to shout a warning as another pink-clad form hurtled towards her unprotected back, shape melting and _changing_ into the stuff of nightmares, talons extending towards her… Jessica realised the danger, too late, it had to be to late, and turned, arms stretched out as if to ward off Elaine’s blow…

There was a thunderclap, deafening them all, a starburst of light and a noisome stink, and Jessica was looking down with contempt at the bubbling mess of flesh on the carpet. “Sorry about that,” she told Geraldine. “But I do hate it when people sneak up on me.”

“Elaine!” Geraldine exclaimed in little more than a horrified whisper. She looked at Jessica, eyes burning red and the doll-like mask slipping, features running together like melting wax. “You! You killed my baby!”

“Oh, enough of the dramatics already.” Jessica gestured impatiently, and immediately, Geraldine froze. The younger woman stepped over the spreading stain that had been Elaine, and took Michaela’s chin in her hand, raising her from her huddle on the floor. “You did admirably well, my dear, although I can’t give you _that_ much credit. A simple post-hypnotic suggestion, aided by the compliance spell in Geraldine’s cosmetics. Why else would you have fucked our John so easily that first time?”

“I don’t understand… Geraldine…” Michaela whispered.

“Geraldine had nothing to do with it. Not even her little pet project, stopping the investigation into her business matters, had anything to do with why you’re here. Although I have to say, it did prove immensely useful. Tell me, have they found your Senior Constable Barton’s unfortunate remains yet?” Michaela flinched, and cast a guilty glance at Geraldine, who ignored her. She was standing rooted to the spot, breathing heavily, glaring at Jessica, but unable to charge at her. “Oh yes, I know all about your pathetic attempts at covering your tracks. All those files… you took them for Geraldine, so no-one else would start asking awkward questions, didn’t you, and killed the one who had gathered them? But Mr Barton was only doing the legwork. Someone else was asking the questions, and you had to find out who, which brought you oh-so-conveniently here, within my reach.” Jessica’s smile, outwardly sweet, seemed to twist and change, become nastier. “See? Everything you have done has been to my ends, for my benefit. From the moment Chrissie Kingston signed on the dotted line, you and your mentor here have been doing my bidding.”

A growing dread gripped Constantine like an old friend. The knowledge that he was in deep shit wasn’t a new one, and he could sense the power Jessica was radiating even through the herbal haze. The green ooze that had been Elaine was proof enough of that. He remembered the visit to her small cottage, and her explanation of how Cottage Magic controlled their people through the cosmetics, and cursed himself for seven types of idiot. From the first time he’d kissed those inviting lips, he’d been slipping under their influence. Still, now he knew what it was, he could try to fight the effects.

“Chrissie Kingston?” Geraldine spoke, haltingly. “Who is she?”

“Who _was_ she, is probably the more appropriate question,” Jessica replied. “Shame, Geraldine, not remembering one of your loyal servants. Dead now, of course. She outgrew her usefulness alive, didn’t she? So you ‘suggested’ to her that throwing herself under a train was a good idea. That’s how it works, doesn’t it? You need them to commit suicide before your little contract activates? And when she did what you asked, you gave me my opportunity. I activated my little sleeper agent here.”

Michaela frowned, a spark of the woman who had risen to Detective Inspector in record time returning. “Kingston? Of course, Phil’s daughter-in-law. But why was he important? Unless…” She glanced over at Constantine. “Of course. He knew John, and you needed John to help you.”

“ _Help_ me?” Jessica threw back her head and laughed, never loosening her grip on Michaela’s chin. “Why ever would I need his help?” She cupped her other hand around the curve of the policewoman’s face, stroking the smooth skin of her cheekbone. “No, my dear little piece of bait, I don’t need his help.” 

Abruptly her caress ceased, her nails digging in, and then impossibly she _pulled_ , ripping away the skin. For a moment Michaela simply gaped at her, exposed muscle from cheekbone to chin twitching. Then blood poured from the wound, drenching the too-tight business suit and splattering on the floor. Instinctively she clapped her hands to her face, but the sensation of naked muscle under her fingers, raw and bloody like so much steak was too much for her. She screamed, a long, keening wail that drilled into Constantine’s eardrums and beyond, into the centre of his brain. Jessica frowned and reached out again, ripping out the other woman’s throat with fingers tipped in rainbow-sparkle nail polish. Michaela collapsed into a small heap, blood pooling on the thick carpet, and Jessica gave her a long look before dropping the flap of skin she still held onto the body. Then, nonchalantly she turned away, wiping the blood from her hands with one of the gauzy scarves from around her waist. 

“What I _need_ ,” she continued, as if nothing had happened: “Is the man himself.” 

John turned his gaze away from Michaela’s body, glad for the immobility the Cottage Magic concoction was giving him. Otherwise he might have thrown up all over the opulent carpet at the sight of that ruined face, a face he had run his lips along not more than a couple of hours ago. “What d’you need me for, if you’re not after this lot?” he grated.

“I need you to make my fortune,” she purred, stroking his face in a motion that echoed the touch she’d used on Michaela. Blood smeared across his cheek and he managed to jerk his head away. She turned back to Geraldine. “Shouldn’t we be going to the Great Hall? It’s almost midnight.”

“You want me to conduct the ceremony still? After all this?” Geraldine’s expression was almost respectful, awed.

“I need your little ceremony to open the portal – I’m a tad… occupied retaining my hold on Mr Constantine here. He’s already starting to resist, aren’t you, John?” She turned back to Constantine with another of those smiles, and he could see the unholy glee that danced in her eyes. Glee and triumph. “Yes, it will mean your little operation finishes somewhat ahead of schedule, but you’ll still get your reward from it. Two birds with one stone, don’t you see?”

“It’ll mean sacrificing your protegee…” Geraldine said it cautiously. “I had Elaine dispose of the other candidates.”

For a moment the other woman hesitated, as if mentally calculating the positives and negatives, then she shrugged, coming to an answer she could live with. “Of course. She is… expendable, like the rest of them.” Jessica took the bloodied scarf and tied it around Constantine’s neck, taking the other end in her hand like a lead. “Her blood will open the door, and then I’ll take you to some… people who will be _very_ pleased to see you.”

***

Kingston crept down the darkened hall, still breathing slightly heavily from his struggle to squeeze through a rather snug-fitting bathroom window. Before his retirement it would have been an easy matter, but the time spent sitting on his arse eating Marjorie’s home baking had meant there was considerably more of him than there had used to be. He pushed the thought away. His mind was trying to settle on irrelevancies, and ignore the true cost of the Cottage Magic franchise. They had thought it was a money-making exercise, but Constantine had disagreed, saying there was something more to it. And so there was – he remembered a wild story Constantine had told him once over a pint or six about yuppie demons trading in soul futures. Different method, same end. And the beauty of it was the demon didn’t even have to do any work, simply recruit a few people who would recruit a few more people, who would recruit even more people. More souls. Playing on people’s greed, or their need, their dreams of a better, easier life. Kingston felt the rage building again. Taking advantage of people like that – it wasn’t right.

Ahead he could hear the buzz of many voices, an excited babble of perhaps a hundred women all talking at once. He edged closer, taking care to stay in the shadows, until he could see a large open doorway, blazing with light and noise. He settled in behind a potted plant and peered between the large leathery leaves at the pink-clad backs of the women in the last row of seats before the doorway. At the other end of the room, just visible through the various well-groomed heads, a small podium had been set up in front of a curtained stage. For the moment it was empty, but even as Kingston watched, there was a movement behind the curtain and a woman stepped out. In her fifties, blonde hair so styled it didn’t move, make-up a flawless mask, Kingston recognised her from the Cottage Magic brochures Chrissie had first brought home. Geraldine Markham, in all her glory.

“My dear ladies, welcome, welcome. I’m so glad you could all come this far. My apologies for the inconvenient trips you’ve all endured, but you know what I say, there is no benefit without a little exertion, am I right?” Her voice was smooth yet motherly, setting her audience at ease with a slight air of naivety, yet Kingston could see she was flustered, even from a distance. Something had happened, and he was willing to bet his pension that it had something to do with Constantine. There was no sign of him or the DI, but no doubt they wouldn’t be far away.

“There are some changes to the program tonight. As you will no doubt know from the circular sent out to all of you last week, we were to have our most recent Distributors of the Month here tonight to receive their certificates. Unfortunately, I’ve had word that Sharon and Carla have been unavoidably detained. I know you will be as disappointed as I am, and will join me in wishing them all the best in their future enterprises.” There was a brief smattering of applause, not particularly enthusiastic. Geraldine went on: “Instead, it will be my great pleasure to announce a new Diamond seller.” There was a slight titter, a rustle of curious whispers, and Nora visibly expanded with pride. “Someone _extremely_ deserving of it. But I’m not going to say who it is, just yet.” She allowed herself a small smile. “But first of all, I think it would be wonderfully calming and empowering if we had our chant first. Something to raise the energy levels. Shall we?”

From his hiding place, Kingston snorted softly. Empowerment chants? From what he’d seen of the Cottage Magic saleswomen, none of them seemed the sort to go for that kind of New Age bunk. But sure enough, they followed Geraldine’s lead, folding their hands in their laps and (apparently, since all he could see were their backs) closing their eyes. The chant itself was barely more than a whisper at first, a string of nonsense syllables. But as it grew in volume, the air crackled slightly, stirring the hairs on the back of Kingston’s neck.

‘Magic,’ he thought. ‘Some kind of weird mumbo-jumbo… Where’s fucking Constantine when I need him?’

Up on the stage, Geraldine Markham continued her litany, the makeup so heavy on her closed eyelids that Kingston wondered how she would be able to lift them again. Somehow she did, and her eyes, when open, held a bloody red gleam that revealed her true nature. Her gaze swept the assembled crowd – and Kingston withdrew back further behind the potted plant, sure those burning eyes would mark him out. Apparently satisfied, she withdrew behind the curtain.

‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,’ Kingston found himself thinking, ludicrously. Panic playing with his head again, fear forcing his thoughts into safe, simple patterns. Still, if Geraldine could safely abandon her flock to their bleating, it might be his chance. Slowly he moved out of the potted plant’s protective shadow, and crept quietly up the aisle between the rows of seated women, still chanting softly. Another movie scene came into his head, an old Hitchcock movie. ‘The Birds’, and the ending scene where the main characters crept through a silent flock of birds, trying not to create a disturbance that would kill them all. Not so many feathers, this time, but he had no doubt these birds would have no reluctance in making him pay for his intrusion. And if they didn’t, Geraldine surely would.


	7. The High Cost of Living

“It’s started. All going perfectly to plan.” Geraldine clasped her hands together, her tone business-like. The soothing familiarity of routine, the adulation of her audience… they had done much to help her regain her composure. “The child, is she ready?”

Jessica tightened the rope binding the thin wrist to the table, and then looked up to smile brightly at Geraldine. “Ready as she ever will be, aren’t you, lovie?” She stroked Alice’s cheek, and the girl shuddered, whimpering. She was spread-eagled upon what had been an ornamental table in the entrance-way next to the Great Hall, ropes tied around each ankle and wrist and then around each table leg. The school uniform had been removed – torn off, to be more accurate – leaving her in her singlet and underwear, her skin goosepimpling in the chill of the small space behind the curtain, and the greater space of the large room beyond. Bruised fingermarks showed livid red on her pale skin, testaments to the rough treatment she’d received. Her eyes were dry – but the swollen, red skin of her face showed that this was probably because she had no more tears left. 

Behind the lethargy created by the Cottage Magic spells, Constantine raged. He was used to being a target for this kind of thing – his brand of magic was sometimes akin to wearing a giant cosmic ‘do your best to torture and kill me’ sign – but the kid was an innocent, regardless of her own small tampering with things occult. Led astray by her darling ‘Auntie’, no doubt. And now he was going to have to watch whilst that same caring relative carved the kid up in some kind of blood ritual intended to open a portal into Hell. Where, he had no doubt, a few old enemies would be lining up for a piece of him. 

Literally.

He struggled to raise his hands, bound in front of him with that bloody lavender scarf, and succeeded in a kind of half-jerk. The compliance spell in the Cottage Magic cosmetics was starting to wear off, either as a consequence of his own stubborn willpower having a target to act against, or just through natural attrition – the sheer amount of ambient power in the atmosphere here, generated by the invocation Geraldine had disguised as some kind of morale-boosting exercise certainly didn’t hurt either. Whatever it was, it was important that Jessica didn’t realise he had slipped her hold until he had his hands around her throat.

And thinking of Jessica, just where did a dozy bint like her get so much power?

His gaze fell on the child again, struggling feebly against the ropes holding her down. She had guts, he’d give her that. Most kids would have been screaming the place down, or catatonic with fear. Not this one – she was stubborn, like her grandfather. And then the answer to his previous unspoken question hit him hard like a hammer between the eyes. It was so bleeding obvious even a novice could have worked it out – he told himself it was the spell on him that was clouding his thinking. Jessica was feeding off the kid, using whatever latent power Alice had to boost her own. And increasing that power by teaching the kid magic, just enough to give her a jumpstart, but not enough that Alice would be able to sense what was happening. No wonder she had hesitated before agreeing to use Alice in this ritual – she’d lose her power source. Which meant she was banking on whatever reward she’d be able to claim from the First to replace that loss.

But in the meantime, in the period between Alice being drained by the spell and the portal opening, Jessica would be vulnerable.

An evil grin slid across Constantine’s face.

***

Up on the stage, Kingston paused, his hand grasping the curtain. He could hear voices on the other side, another chant providing a counterpoint to the seemingly nonsensical stream of sounds coming from the Cottage Magic saleswomen. This one also stirred the hair on the back of his neck, made his skin crawl as if a thousand insects were working their way beneath his skin, but unlike the other, this one _sounded_ evil. It spoke of the unspeakable.

“Come on, you daft old bugger. Alice needs you,” he told himself. Then he parted the curtain and slipped through the gap.

And stopped.

He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to scream. The scene on the small stage behind the curtain was straight out of a bad horror movie, one of those Italian ones his son had occasionally brought home on tape as a laugh. Geraldine was there, wearing some kind of hooded robe, but the pink business suit still showed underneath, jarring horribly. And there was Alice, tied to a table in her skivvies, poor kid, trying to twist away from the knife that Jessica was holding over her. Constantine was over in the corner with his hands tied in front of him with what looked like a bloodied silk scarf. He looked even more out of it than usual…

Kingston’s thoughts abruptly screeched to a halt.

“ _Jessica_? What the hell do you think you’re doing, love?”

She laughed at him, pushing the hood off her hair. “What does it look like, old man? I’m _trying_ to sacrifice an innocent to unholy powers, so if you’ll excuse me…”

Something snapped in Kingston then, and he lunged forward across the table, grabbing for the knife with one hand whilst he punched out at Jessica with the other. His gnarled fist caught her nicely on the nose, and she staggered back, momentarily dazed. Blood poured down from between the hands clapped to her face, staining the flowing frock underneath.

“You fucking _bitch_ ,” Kingston snarled, putting the knife to the rope around Alice’s right wrist. “I trusted you. _Alice_ trusted you. And all along you were… Urk!” 

Two impeccably manicured hands locked around his throat from behind, retaining their hold even as a noisome smoke rose from their skin where it touched his. As he bucked and clawed, desperate for air, he could hear Geraldine’s voice hissing venomously in his ear:

“You fool. You thought a child’s puny charm would halt me? What are you but a used-up old copper, too broken to go on policing, so he takes enforced early retirement before they can throw him out? Your friend Constantine couldn’t stop us, what makes you think you could, old man?”

“Hold him,” Jessica rasped, clambering back to her feet, power crackling around her like a static cloud. “I’m going to flay him alive, inch by inch…” She stumbled around the table so as not to vaporise Alice in the cross-fire, a move which brought her directly in front of Constantine. 

Bad move. Constantine brought his bound hands up and clubbed her with his interlocked fists across the back of the neck. She crashed to her knees, dazed, and before she could recover, he hooked his arms over her head, the scarf around his wrists pulled tightly across her windpipe.

“Forget about me, Glinda? Not very clever of you, was it?” he snarled into her ear, teeth bared in a ferocious grin as he yanked viciously on the scarf. Jessica could do nothing more than gurgle, spit slicking her chin as she struggled to draw breath.

The sudden turning of the apparently-compliant Constantine startled Geraldine, and for a moment she loosened her hold on Kingston’s throat. A moment was enough – he twisted in her grasp and head-butted her in the face, adding a knee to the stomach for good measure, and then shoving her as hard as he could. She fell back, the front of her jacket smoking where his hands had touched it and her hands clutching at empty air, then closing on the curtain and her momentum taking her onto the stage and then past it. She plunged into the audience in a flurry of red fabric, her weight tearing the heavy velvet from its moorings.

The chant faltered, and died away into a buzz of confused murmurs and half-shrieks. Pink-clad women, blinking as if woken from a deep sleep, looked from the stage to the struggling mass of velvet curtain, to the stage again. Some rose from their seats, unsure of what to do without Geraldine’s commands. A couple, less affected by the cosmetics, perhaps, or maybe just with a greater sense of self-preservation, slipped out of the hall, but the majority remained, stunned.

Bending stiffly, Kingston retrieved the knife that had slipped from his hand when Geraldine had pounced on him and returned to Alice. “I’m here, love. Grandad’s here, and he’s going to take you home,” he muttered as he sawed at the rope pinning the girl to the table. She merely whimpered, pushed beyond her small, stubborn strength, tears leaking from beneath her closed eyes.

Over in the corner, Jessica thrashed, eyes bulging alarmingly in a face that was rapidly turning dark red. Constantine merely pulled tighter. “Looks like we’re even, love. I underestimated you, and you sure as hell underestimated me,” he told her, ignoring her nails clawing into the back of his hands. “Should’ve stuck with your Mother Goddess – demons are notoriously unreliable to bargain with. And they have a nasty habit of eviscerating you when you turn your back on them.” Then movement caught his eye, and he half-turned his head to see the mound of red velvet curtains rising from the floor.

“Kingston!” he called out, but too late: his cry was drowned out by a discordant screech as Geraldine cast off the curtain and the last of her humanity, revealing her true shape. A mixture, as most demons were, of various creatures, she had the bloated torso of a maggot, coupled with the long legs of a praying mantis. Uselessly small, leathery bat wings sprouted from her back, and clustered eyes glared balefully from a pointed, insectile face. Absurdly, though, she retained the perfectly coiffed blonde hair, perched ridiculously on the head like some kind of hat.

Screams filled the Great Hall as panicked saleswomen stampeded for the door.

“ _Fleshbag_ ,” Geraldine hissed from between multiple layers of sharp teeth. “You’re _mine_. Your death will take _eternities_.” Awkwardly, dragging her bloated body towards the stage on those spindly-looking legs, she approached Kingston. He had paused in his hacking away at Alice’s bonds to stare at the approaching demon in horror. He’d already freed one wrist and one ankle, and now Alice was tugging at the remaining ropes, frantically sobbing and wailing for her grandfather. To no avail – it seemed his own stressed sanity had finally toppled, leaving him incapable of doing more than to watch Death approaching him, almost painfully slowly. Another heave, and Geraldine was at the base of the stage. She reached a clawed leg forward, grasping at the edge…

“HOW DARE YOU!” An eminently sensible handbag smacked down on that questing limb and, her incredulous expression clear even on her inhuman visage, Geraldine turned to face her new foe.

Nora was livid. This was _her_ day, the day she finally got the prize she had been working towards for the past year, the day she had dreamed about. Her diamond pin, a symbol of her hard work, of the sacrifices she had made, the deals she had done. It was for this day that she had held countless make-up parties, hosted simpering, stupid women she ordinarily wouldn’t acknowledge on the street, worn out countless pairs of shoes, spent untold hours preparing leaflets, filling orders, signing up distributors… She had lived and breathed Cottage Magic for the past year, and she was damned if she was going to miss her moment now.

“I will not stand for this!” She swung the handbag again, striking Geraldine’s fleshy torso. “This is outrageous!” This time the handbag smacked Geraldine’s head, threatening to dislodge her hair. “This is no way to treat those who are loyal to you! I won’t stand for it, I tell you!” Smack! “I want what’s coming to me and I WANT IT NOW!” 

“Very well, you shall have it, Nora dear.” And with that, the Geraldine-demon lunged forward, catching the outraged saleswoman in her barbed forelegs. Nora cried out, swatting ineffectually with her handbag as those sharp points pierced her skin – the cry became a scream as she was lifted up towards Geraldine’s face, and the gaping maw her mouth became. Then the woman’s screams were muted as her head was engulfed by that mouth and those rows of teeth closed down, severing her neck. Almost contemptuously, Geraldine threw Nora’s headless body down, blood pumping from the neck stump. “Beastly woman,” she muttered to herself, chewing briefly before swallowing the saleswoman’s head. “I’m certain to have indigestion after that.” Then she recalled her original target. “Kingston…” she hissed, turning towards him…

…Only to be borne backwards as the retired policeman flung himself off the stage at her, knife clutched in his hand. Nora’s intervention had given his tottering mind the leeway it needed, and instead of waiting for his death, he was going to confront it. The Great Hall rang with Geraldine’s shrieks of pain as the knife cut deep into her body, but the greater damage was being done by the ward – he held it tight in his other fist, the fuzzy pink wool wrapped around his hand and wrist, and he was alternatively stabbing the demon with the knife and punching her with that fist. Where his hand touched her, great smoking welts appeared, and Geraldine struggled, not to kill her foe, but to escape him.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the only distraction Nora caused. In those crucial seconds, Constantine’s grip had slipped, ever-so-slightly, and allowed Jessica to catch her breath. It was all she needed. Again there was that starburst of light, the deafening roar of noise, and Constantine was flung away from the kneeling witch, smacking heavily into the wall. He landed heavily, clothes smoking, hands already blistering from the force of Jessica’s magic – the smouldering remains of the scarf clung to his wrists. Instinctively he tried to think of a shielding spell, something quick and immediate, curling up against what he knew would be Jessica’s fatal retributive strike, but it never came. Instead he saw, as he opened his painfully dazzled eyes, Jessica half-sprawled over Alice, her hand on the child’s forehead and the final words of the portal spell on her lips.

“Too late, magician!” she cried, seeing him trying to rise. “I don’t need Geraldine’s pack of bimbos, not whilst I’ve got my little battery here! She’s got enough energy left in her for me to open the portal myself, and then I’ll get my reward! Power and life everlasting, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, not without killing the child!”

Even as she spoke, the hall darkened, the walls and ceiling creaking ominously with the strain the spell was putting on the fabric of reality. Beneath the table a small funnel swirled open in the worn boards of the stage. Constantine’s skin crawled with ambient power, sparks crackling and popping from his blackened fingertips.

“NO!” Kingston screamed. He clambered back onto the stage, clothing tattered and splattered with foul ichors, the knife dripping in his hand. Behind him, Geraldine’s bulk shifted, collapsing into itself, so much dead meat. “I won’t let that happen!”

“There’s nothing you _can_ do to stop it, ‘Uncle’,” Jessica cried, hair flying in the hot wind rising from the opening portal. She was beyond madness now, consumed by her need for power. “I can’t stop the spell, not without killing Alice, and the spell is going to drain her completely any way! Either way, she’s dead!” Beneath her hand, Alice bucked and thrashed, eyes rolled up to show the whites.

“I won’t accept that!” he shouted back, staggering closer. “There has to be a way!”

“There’s nothing you can do. She’s mine, always has been, and she’s going to get me the power to do anything I want! Just you wait…” There was a solid “thunk” and Jessica collapsed with a small sigh. Constantine curled his lip contemptuously as he dropped the chair leg he’d hit her across the back of the head with. 

“What is it about turnin’ evil that always makes people talk in bloody cliches?” he muttered, wincing as he flexed his burnt hands. Cracks appeared in the crisped skin, weeping a mixture of clear fluid and blood. “Stupid cow.”

“Forget her, what about Alice?” Kingston stumbled to Constantine’s side, seizing his singed coat lapels. “Was she right?” The way Constantine’s face twisted told him what he didn’t want to know. “No!” he bellowed, twisting the cloth in his hands. “I won’t believe it! You have to do something, John! This is what you do!”

“I can’t!” Constantine yelled back – the noise of the maelstrom made it impossible to speak normally. “The bitch tied the fucking spell into Alice’s essence, and there’s no way in Hell I can undo that without killing her! The only choice you have is when she dies – now, before the portal fully opens, or leave it until the spell drains her completely and we’re up to our arses in demons! And I can bet you they won’t be as easy to kill as your Avon lady down there.”

Kingston opened his mouth to argue, to demand that something be done, to howl out his fury at the universe… Whatever it was, it died in the making as he looked down at the still, white face of his eldest grandchild. She lay quietly now, drained beyond fighting. With a shaking hand he brushed sweat-matted hair from her forehead, cupped the curve of her cheek in his callused palm. “I failed you, love,” he whispered brokenly, face contorting. “I couldn’t keep you safe.”

On the floor, Jessica moaned softly, eyelids flickering.

“First things first,” Constantine said, glad for the distraction. Kingston would do the right thing, he was a copper and he always would be, but it didn’t make the intervening emotional struggle any easier. Heaving Jessica’s limp body up by the armpits, he dragged her over to the ever-widening portal, grunting slightly from the effort. Her eyes fluttered open as he paused at its lip.

“What…?” She looked around, dazed, and then realised where she was. “No! You can’t!”

“Why not, Glinda? Don’t like these mates of yours after all? Pity, ‘cause I’m sure they’re gonna love you. Oh, yes, I’m sure they’ll have all sorts of fun and games, just for you.” And with that Constantine shoved her forward. She grabbed vainly at his shoes as she was sucked downwards, and then she was gone, a scream trailing behind her.

Constantine went to brush his hands off on his coat, stopping at the last minute as the pain in his hands reminded him it wouldn’t be a good idea and that perhaps when this was over some self-administered anaesthetic wouldn’t go astray. But first, there was one final thing to be done.

“Phil,” he said as gently as he could. “We need to close this thing up, before it’s too late.”

Kingston nodded, once. Despite the moisture on his cheeks, his face was hard. He could have been carved from the local granite, so stony and grey were his features. He stroked Alice’s cheek once more and stepped back a little, raising the knife in his hand. He’d wiped the demon blood from it on the edge of his jacket, and it gleamed in the remaining dim traces of light. 

“Phil, you don’t have to. I can…” Constantine began, aware of the voice in the back of his head that whispered nastily that it would even things up after Raguel. After all, Kingston had killed _his_ child…

“I’m her flesh and blood. If anyone should, it should be me.” The voice was steady, but Constantine could see the tension thrumming through his arm. And then suddenly, surprising even Constantine with its swiftness, the knife plunged down parting the child’s flesh easily beneath it and thunking solidly into the table underneath. There was no reaction from Alice herself, not even a flow of blood from the wound – almost everything within her had been drained to feed the spell, leaving only a shell. The portal halted in its spin, contracting upon itself until it winked into nothingness, accompanied by the wailing of many inhuman voices as the way was blocked to them. There was a final blast of hot wind, and then even that died away into nothing.

Kingston’s breathing was harsh and rapid in the resulting silence. Constantine groped for his arm, wincing as his burnt hand brushed against rough tweed.

“Phil? We’d better get going. One of those Cottage Magic birds would have raised the alarm, and there’s a lot here that won’t bear explaining.”

Kingston didn’t reply, the arm beneath Constantine’s hand stiff and unyielding. For a moment Constantine thought he heard sirens, and then realised it was memory playing tricks. Only this time it wasn’t a demonic would-be angel that lay lifeless, it was a human child. One they’d both failed. He steeled himself – there was nothing to be gained by remaining. If his life had taught him one thing, it was when to cut his losses. And when to be hard.

“Phil, don’t be such a pillock. You’ve got a wife and another grand-daughter, and they’re going to need you, you hear? You’ve still got a family!” Ignoring the pain that shot up his arm, Constantine tightened his grip and pulled on Kingston’s arm. “Come on, or so help me, I’ll leave you here!”

Kingston took a deep, shuddering breath, and then nodded, the motion barely perceptible in the dim light. “Marjorie. Carrie,” he murmured quietly. He allowed Constantine to pull him away then, off the stage and through the chaos of the Great Hall, only turning back at the doorway for one last look. A futile gesture, as the room was shrouded in darkness. Then Constantine was tugging on his arm again, and he let himself be led away.

***

Green fields. White sheep. Dull grey skies.

The unchanging countryside flashing past the window soothed Constantine’s tired mind. It was safely boring, undemanding, and he could handle that after the events of the past few days. The slight rocking motion of the train, the regular drumming of the wheels on the tracks… no doubt he’d sleep soon, once the pain killers he’d taken kicked in. And hopefully not dream.

He looked down at his hands, swathed in light gauze. They’d heal soon enough, but in the meantime they made doing for himself a bastard. He couldn’t even hold a cigarette, for Christ’s sake. Irony indeed, when he considered that he’d actually scored a seat in the smoker’s carriage this time. He settled for sucking in the blue haze of second-hand smoke, looking out at the pastoral peace of the countryside and trying not to think about what had happened the last few days. Faces swirled through his memory: Michaela. Geraldine. Jessica. Alice.

Across from him was a young bloke, student by his dress, reading the local paper. ‘Mysterious Fire Destroys Historic Manor’, read the headline, possibly the biggest news the area had had in quite a while. He repressed a snort. There was nothing mysterious about a Molotov cocktail made from a bottle of nail polish remover and Kingston’s handkerchief – he’d lobbed it into the front entrance hall and into a dried flower arrangement that had blazed up nicely. That was the thing about those old houses, they were perfect fire traps, and this one hadn’t proved any different. It had taken care of a lot of those awkward questions, such as “What the fuck is this giant insect thing?” The paper went on to say that the owner of the building, director of a pyramid cosmetics-selling scheme, had mysteriously disappeared, and that much of the money made by the company had also vanished. Taxation officials were conducting an investigation into the company’s business affairs. Squinting, he managed to make out that several bodies had been found, including that of missing local girl, Alice Kingston. He looked away then, not wanting to be reminded again, but the memories unreeled in his mind, regardless.

Marjorie Kingston hadn’t survived her encounter with the supernatural. The heart attack had been a major one, the damage too great. For a while it seemed Kingston wouldn’t survive either – Constantine was convinced he would simply turn around and walk out of the hospital and lose himself on those bleak, windy moors, another victim of Constantine’s unnatural associations. Then the next-door neighbours, Donohue, that was the name, had appeared, Carrie in tow, and she had clung to him like a limpet, physically preventing him from going anywhere. She’d become his anchor – he looked after her in a fiercely protective way that was going to cause problems in ten years when the kid wanted her independence, but in the meantime would give him something to live for. Everything else, every other emotion, every memory, was gone, walled away behind impregnable mental walls. It was what Kingston had done after the death of his son, and who was Constantine to argue with another man’s coping mechanisms? 

The thought prompted his own habit, and he groped awkwardly in his top pocket for his smokes. His fumbling dislodged a small bunch of wilting flowers he’d stuffed in the buttonhole of his jacket. Rosemary for remembrance; fern for magic and shelter; the purple tuft of garlic flower to ward off evil; white heather for protection and to make wishes come true; marigold for sorrow; witch hazel to bind the spell… Alice’s charm for her mother. He’d picked it up from the railway bridge on his way out of town. Ignoring them for the moment, he managed to fish a cigarette out; flicking his lighter elicited a grimace, but finally he was rewarded with a small yellow flame and a puff of acrid smoke that stung his singed lungs. For a long moment, he simply savoured the sensation, closing his eyes against memory, against everything.

Then he exhaled, a cloud of blue-grey smoke streaming from his nose, and the moment was over.

Constantine looked out the window again, drawing deeply on his cigarette, not caring about the ash that dribbled onto his clothes. He could see, reflected in the grimy glass, a faint ghost of himself. He picked the flowers up, feeling the last vestiges of the spell unravel, and closed his bandaged hand over them, crushing what little life remained. The pungent smell of rosemary filled his nose, even as his stuffed the small charm into his pocket. A small piece of cottage magic, and nothing more.

He stubbed out his cigarette and let the motion of the train rock him to sleep.

 

The End.


End file.
